The Creggan White Hare
by phantomwriter05
Summary: PROLOGUE - in 1935, Lady Mary Crawley prepares to marry a glamorous Hollywood Movie Star. However, among the media circus of the 'social epic of the decade', a ragged outlaw lands ashore after long exile across the sea. Now, amid dark plots and bounties, the lost heir of Downton Abbey returns home to rescue his estranged mother and beloved Sybbie from the vile clutches of evil men.
1. Prelude

**1926**

The snow fell languid and slow, caressing the frigid air, selecting the tree screen that covered a gravel and stone walkway that was centuries old. It was a cold, cold, Christmas Eve in the village of Downton. Most people were already home, those who kept their little shops open, felt the timeless drag of the clock till their luncheon closing time. In the small enclosure of ancient stone and wood that collected the snowy accumulation there was a sleepy spell that fell over the country village. Men and women walking as if in a daze to and fro, braving the bitter cold, picking up the last things they needed before stretching out with the ones they loved for the next two days. All around the cracked cobble stone, were bundled, red faced, children. They were giggling, running, playing, and yelling. Snowballs were flying, snow soldiers being erected by the Great War Memorial. The dreams of all the possibilities of tomorrow, all the joy and magic of childhood memories that would last a lifetime ran through their tiny minds. It was a time before they knew of money, of strife, of what was waiting for them out there in the worlds of their father and grandfathers. They all believed in miracles, they all believed that anything was possible.

It was the only belief that threw more coal on the fire of the small boy who ran faster than any child that day.

Snowballs whizzed by his tiny head, shoes pounded hard on stone, and people called out to him in alarm and curse. But the boy didn't hear anything. Blood was rushing through his ears, his lungs were on fire, and his breath was misting into his eyes, coming apart like steam on a runaway train. His nose and mouth were covered by his granny's scarf. His hat secured to his head, brown tweed coat, and winter pants had snow caked to them. The supple black leather gloves that belonged to his mother were still too big for his tiny hand, but they gripped the white paper bag hard.

The village children, who were ignorant of the boy's plight, played on. But they halted at the small boy's passing, watching the fastest kid in the County of Grantham, run faster and jump higher than anyone had ever seen before. When they arrived at school after the holidays, they'd swear he was the fastest man alive. It would be a rumor, a distinction that would stick with him for the rest of his life around those parts. He was George "The Comet" Crawley, the fastest speedster in the entire Imperium …

It was a name that would forever haunt him in his darkest moments after that morning.

His little arms pumped ear to pocket, he hurdled a fence, and juked Mr. Bakewell. The boys down at the "Grantham Arms" amongst the racket of their holiday festivities and wild music, gathered at the windows to cheer the speed trail of snow powder and frothing air in drunken pride. Later, when they heard the news of what happened, they wouldn't need their wives to tell them of the shame they felt in the way they acted in that moment. For months afterward, whenever they would see that same boy passing in the village they'd stand and remove their hats venerably in respect as he passed. Any man, any father was expected to do all he could in the situation George was in. In a just world it would be a father who would've, should've, been running, should've been hurrying back home with a white bag in hand. But it wasn't. It was merely a child. It was just a small boy who was so suddenly burdened with the weight of his whole world, his own family's hopes and dreams. It's very future on his shoulders. And no man would forget the bravery of speed in the legs of the smallest Crawley that day.

It was a mistake.

That is what they'll say several days from now. That's what the hospital board will rule. It was all just an honest mistake, but a costly one, one that would forever change the village of Downton.

It had been a record-breaking winter that froze the Yorkshire counties to their very roots, right down to the marrow of the bones. Heavy snows, wet sheets of deadly ice, one layered on top of the other, like a great wedding cake. It was the hardest winter that anyone could remember in so long, a true killing frost. It had reminded Lady Grantham of the winters in Cincinnati. Most of the village had come down with 'the illness' over the first few weeks. Even at the house Mrs. Patmore, Daisy, Mrs. Baxter, Mr. Bates, Lord Grantham himself, and the baby were down. It had come on so suddenly, so violently, both winter and the sickness that the hospital had been overrun. The supplies had been dwindling. Trucks slipped on ice or got whited out in the snowstorms on the way from York. The supplies were coming infrequently. It was a strain on the doctors and nurses to keep up with so many patients. One might have thought that they were back in the war with the influx of casualties.

Later, it would be said that had the hospital been staffed properly, had there been younger doctors and nurses, men and women in their prime to captain the crisis. Had Lady Grantham not allowed her friends stay on past their welcome. That the most egregious of mistakes would not have been made. It was a deadly mixture of exhaustion and old age that produced a great tragedy. They'd chalk it up to incompetence, corruption, and favoritism.

It was the kindness of a conditioned American princess who didn't have the courage, the stiff upper lip of a true Englishwoman to make changes. She was a foreigner who let people's feelings factor in staying on longer than they should have. In the end they'd say that it was all, entirely, Lady Grantham's fault. It would be a finding that would lead her grief-stricken Lord husband to lose all composure and attack the mousy and coldly unfeeling president of the York hospital scheme. They were separated after the first punch. There, a broken Countess, clutching her husband's lapels, only asked, in tears, for the love of her life to leave the man and take her back to their home. Afterward Cora Crawley would be removed as president, Lady Merton would be forced into retirement, and Doctor Clarkson … would never have a chance to face formal charges.

All because of one mistake, one honest mistake …

George Crawley had rather liked Christmas, which was why he had been up so early. The halls were empty, the rooms were bare, and there wasn't enough life in Downton Abbey to fill a hall closet. But that was going to change by this afternoon. The whole family was coming over. His mama had insisted that everyone come, and somehow, as usual, Lady Mary Talbot had gotten her way. Some might have said, if anyone would believe them, that Lady Mary was lonely. More so, some might have even staked a claim that she missed everyone … even Lady Edith. But the winter was clearing, and there was rumor that they might even see the sun today. So overall there was an excitement in the air.

It was strange to the boy. But then there had been an uptick of happiness in the old estate since Caroline was born. Everyone seemed to have gone through some sort of revival of spirit. Some great rebirth of happiness after so much gloom had infected the place in the long years bereft of hope of the survival of this way of life. Yet, the truth was that George hadn't really been affected at all.

The boy admittedly didn't really know that much happiness in his life. There had always been a strange gloomy cloud over him at all times that seemed to be noticed by everyone. He had once heard his Aunt Rosamund mention to his Granny that the boy was not born under a bad sign, but _was_ the bad sign, concerning the events of his birth and run of bad luck since. His Granny told her that she didn't think so, noticing that George had heard them. Later, while she changed for dinner, she took a moment to sit him in her lap. Stroking his curls, Lady Grantham reassured the boy, her only boy, that he wasn't cursed. George nodded, but it saddened him to see the uncertainty in the lovely older woman's matching eyes as she buried her face in his little chest comfortingly. He hugged her head with all the love in the world …

But he didn't believe her.

There were times when George felt terribly alone in the big house. He didn't have nannies anymore. When Sybbie and Marigold were in the nursery they had nannies and nurses. But when Sybbie went off to London with Uncle Tom and Lucy to open the family's new motor shop, and Aunt Edith had gotten married to Uncle Bertie and they took Marigold with them to Brancaster … they all left George. It hurt to know that it was because of George- personally- that the nannies and nurses wouldn't come around.

An old Muslim princess of some sort, named **_"Pamuk"_** had hated him, hated him so much that she scared everyone away who could've been his friend. His Mama, who had never been ostracized from society before in her life, was angrily mortified that they had all uniformly done so to her own child before he had even been given a fighting chance. Mary simply said that everyone was just being ridiculous. She assured her boy that there was no vengeful mother of Kamal Pamuk that had placed a sizable bounty on the small boy's head. It was all just a big misunderstanding that should've been ancient history by now. Plus, it didn't matter anyway, because, according to Lady Mary, her son couldn't be friends with the servants. He remembered the hurt look on Anna's face as she was leaving his mother's room.

It was just one more lie by a Crawley girl that George didn't believe.

Being cursed with a Turkish bounty, gave the boy an inordinate amount of time to himself. There were no nannies to instruct him. His Mama was the Agent for the estate, and his Uncle Tom was opening Henry and his business's branch in London. His Aunt Edith, who usually would spare time for him, was in Brancaster. Both his Granny and 'Grams' were always at the Hospital, and Donk was working on something important in the library. He had lessons with Mr. Mosley in the afternoon, and his Grams Isobel helped in the morning with his education. But other than that, George had found himself utterly alone most hours of the day. After Tea, Lady Mary gave him a kiss, a smile, and then went upstairs to start her shift with the baby. It was a strange thing to the boy that while everyone else seemed reinvigorated by life and the modern times, the Heir to Downton felt quite stagnate.

It should've bred some sort of distaste for the new baby, and nine out of ten times any other child would grow to hate the little girl. But nine out of ten children were not fathered by Matthew Crawley. Most children didn't inherit his gentleness and understanding to others caught up in unfortunate situations that were no fault of their own. There had been so many times, so many opportunities, for the boy to hate the baby, hate his mother's new family that he had been left out of since Caroline Talbot had been born … but he didn't. And it wasn't even that his mama was getting much better at balancing work and her children, including taking him and Sybbie with her on the runs to the farms. It was something more important for the boy than to be included in his mother's new family.

The reality was that all the time that George spent alone, he usually spent it with the babies. He took his schoolwork, his books, and his toys into the nursery and sat with them. In a strange way, he couldn't hate Little Caroline, because she and little Johnny Bates were his only friends these days. When he was mad, when he was sad, when he heard something funny on his walkabouts in the village alone, he'd tell three people in the whole world about it, and the toddlers were two of them. Little Caroline was always there, was always in the crib when he came home. So he'd talk to her, because without Sybbie and Marigold, the baby was the only one who would listen to him. Some days the baby, with her rich chocolate curls and her father's eyes, was the only person happy to see him. She'd stand up in her crib and reach for him. The day wasn't complete without a kiss good morning and goodnight from her big brother.

But the baby had been sick for the last couple of weeks. Every day he came to read to her, Pulps, dime adventures, airplane manuals, books on Egyptian Archeology. And she'd just lie there in her crib and watch him with tiredly sallow little eyes. The other night, his mama slept in his room. He could tell that she was worried, because she had carried him out of the nursery, where he had fallen asleep keeping watch on the baby. When he awoke in his room, she had laid his head on her belly as she lounged back on his bed, watching him sleep. She stroked the boy's blonde curls and rubbed his back as he buried his face into her silk covered navel. There was something different in Lady Mary's eyes, like she was seeing her boy for the first time after all these years. And it made her happy and sad all at the same time.

He was growing in likeness to Matthew in mind and mood, while he was the spitting image of Sybil. He was everyone that was missing in her life. Cora was her future, Sybbie was her constant, but George was her past, and it had been so hard for her to balance her three children. But right then, it was the past that she needed. Her two darlings, Matthew and Sybil, were all she needed with a mind clouded in doubts and fears. And George was just that, he was them, he was everything that was missing that had returned. So, she had clung to him, clung so tightly. In her moment of overwhelming love of the boy who was haunted by the missing, Mary Crawley put too much faith in that perfect union of memory and sentiment, and forgot what he really was … just a child.

It opened the door to a mindset that would make what was to come even more tragic.

Most of the staff and Lord Grantham had been strong enough to fight off the illness, but the baby required a new medicine. And it had been days before it could be delivered. In the meantime the house was going all day and night. From Lady Grantham to the scullery maid, everyone tried their hand at home remedies and grandmother's recipes. All to help keep Little Caroline afloat till help could arrive. When it finally had, from the slippery roads of York, into the hands of Doctor Clarkson, there had been a sigh of relief in the house. Last night everyone slept soundly, the long dark trial of their hearts had come to an end as they fed the droplets to the baby.

But this morning when George walked into the nursery, air racing book underarm, to wait for all the family and guest to arrive for the Christmas party, he paused.

The toddler had been laying head down, her little chest breathing slowly. He had leapt up to lean over the railing of her crib to see that Caroline had her eyes open. But he found that they were glazed over, almost unseeing. Even when she had been sick, the baby had always been a talker, cueing, giggling, and caterwauling just to make sure everyone knew she was there. But it scared George to see her so silent, so completely disoriented.

It took him back to his room where his mother was lounging sinfully. There was a restful aura of comfort that was upon the beauty as she snuggled in, smelling the boy's pillow and relishing the softness of his sheets. There was some unfamiliarity with George's places in the house to a woman who had just done the bare minimum of keeping track of her son. Yet, all the sudden, and much like Matthew, Mary had discovered a wealth of homely warmth and comfort not only in her boy's arms, but also in his dwellings. In truth, she found that, perhaps, she would make more of a habit of frequenting her time with George, if for no other reason than how it made her feel to wake up next to him. Already, she was amused and impressed to hear that George and Thomas had their own method and ingredients for the washing of his linins when she asked how he got everything so soft and pleasantly smelling. He also had taught Mary a simpler and more delicious way to mix certain parts of her breakfast together as he got dressed. She hadn't fathomed how knowledgeable, how surprisingly interesting, George was in the little wisdoms, discoveries, and eccentricity of a rather dashing style the small boy had picked up on his own.

He found his mama reading the paper in her silk night slip, her finished breakfast tray in front of her. George had informed her of the baby's state, but his mama had dismissed it. Of course, the baby was "out of it", she has been sick for a week. Mary, without looking from her paper, informed him that this probably was the first time that the baby was properly getting her rest. It wasn't that Mary didn't care, but for a woman whom motherhood did not ever come naturally, she had been up for four straight days with her child. Today was the day for rest, a moment before the party, before the great celebration of the anniversary of their new lives.

The danger was over.

The boy nodded, even if he was unsatisfied with her answer. However, just as he was about to go, Mary had grabbed his hand. The boy paused, frowning at the action, confused even further by the way she had took his face in her hands. They were so close that he had never noticed that his mother had freckles. It was as if she was looking at him for the first time, really looking at him. Till this day he knew not what it was that had drawn her to him in that moment, only that he would never forget the surge of a powerful love that came in her eyes. There was some memory locked deep inside of her happier days with Matthew, being filled once more with the intrinsic knowledge that this boy was their legacy of a romance for the ages. In her, in that moment of time, there came to surface 'Matthew's' Mary who had not been seen in so long. Gently, she leaned in and kissed the boy chastely with a peck, her hand threading George's curls as she left a wet smack of lips upon him. There, she spent a long-time, inches from her boy's face. Her amber eyes searching his cerulean ones in confusion and passion from the reawakened emotions long dormant since after Matthew's death.

But the moment passed, and soon neither was sure what to do or how to do it. Never before had Lady Mary been so incredibly affectionally intimate with anyone, not even her own husbands. It was a side of the woman that no one, ever, had seen before. Suddenly, if only to break the strange tension, the boy quickly stole the last piece of bacon and a triangle of buttered toast off her tray. There was a mischievous giggle as she swatted him playfully with her paper as he bolted out of his room. He had left his mother watching the doorway he had ran out of with joyous smile on her ruby lips. It would be the last he'd ever remember of his childhood.

Thus, it was both unexpected happiness and a curse of fated doom set upon them that Lady Mary was so incredibly high and in love with her son that morning. Fore she believed that George Crawley, Viscount of Downton Abbey, and her heir, was capable of incredible feats …

She genuinely believed that the small boy, her boy, could do anything in that hour.

Yet, when he left her in his bedroom, George still was convinced that there was more going on than anyone expected. With all of his heart he wanted to believe his mama, to trust in that woman that had just kissed him and loved him so deeply in that shared moment. But something just wasn't right. He spent several minutes pacing the nursery, with his hands behind his back, deer stalker upon his head, and a toy pipe in his mouth. It seemed excessive, but a young child was convinced that this was the way only the most serious people thought of the most complex matters. When he was done, he leapt back over the railing to look at the baby. He turned her over to lie her on her back, stroking her rich chocolate curls. Yet, the baby girl only breathed softly, looking demurely, weakly, up at her brother. To see her in such a way, burdened the boy's heart greatly, feeling as if she was asking him, begging him, to help her. Tightening his cheek, the small boy had concluded that this, certainly, didn't look like a baby in recovery of a terrible illness. Palming his pipe, he turned from where he was draped and dangling over the crib railing and to the nightstand table. He knew he'd get in trouble for what he was about to do, but he didn't care.

Something wasn't right.

Swiping the baby's pediatric medicine vile, the boy quickly descended the steps, ignoring a hello from Henry who seemed amused rather than offended by his snubbing. Later, much later, there were years when George would anguish over if he should've said something to him. But in other years he remembered that in these things, George's stepfather would usually defer to his mama. Though he'd fight her on most, children were the one subject in which he would give to his wife. The man watched with a smirk while the boy in dear stalker cap rushed to open the access door to downstairs and descend to the servant's hall

The downstairs had been decked out for Christmas, with homemade decorations and a small Christmas tree in the corner next to the fireplace. The household staff was setting up for their Christmas luncheon, half the staff rushing about while the other half sat at the table, headed by a conversing Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes. They had all noticed George come down, finding the deer stalker hard to miss. But they had all gotten out of the habit of standing at attention. Both George and Sybbie had become a fixture of downstairs life. Without a nanny, they found both Lady Mary's eldest children amongst them most of the day. They all took to taking turns watching the children day to day, each absently teaching them something about their trade. Daisy how to bake, Mrs. Baxter how to sew, Mr. Mosley how to read. Mr. Carson was detail oriented in his instruction on how to properly clean silver, while Mrs. Hughes was just as detail oriented in her instruction on how best to dodge silver cleaning lessons. For everything else there was John and Anna Bates who, in tandem, served as the children's nanny and governess. But above all, when George came downstairs, there was only one man he was looking for … his friend, Thomas Barrow.

When the boy found him, he was sitting across from Mr. Bates and Anna, smoking a cigarette, watching ambiguously the annoyingly happy married couple wrap presents for their son's second Christmas. Old wounds never quite fade, and neither did rivalries. But Thomas remained on his best behavior, knowing that any actions taken against Mr. and Mrs. Bates would put a stain on his character to George who thought all three of them as important to him. His mood darkened by a letter in hand, it bore the Royal House's stationary but seemed penned by a personal hand. But whatever weighed on his mind from his special friend in service to the king, it went away when he saw the small boy. The Butler suddenly lit up like the great tree in the foyer of Downton. He shook the boy's hand and offered "The Great Mouse Detective" a seat with a paternal good nature. But George ignoring the many "Happy Christmas" said to him from the smiling servants put the man on edge. The boy whispered into Thomas's ear, informing the man that he had to talk to him about something very important.

Seeing the urgency in Master George's eyes and the need for secrecy, Barrow announced that he would be in his office. Mrs. Hughes had offered them her sitting room, Thomas denied it kindly, not needing Anna to overhear whatever they were going to say from the vent. The Lady's Maid and Governess was already quite suspicious of the two with deep frowning glances back and forth between master and butler. Her maternal instincts already pinpointing that something rather dire was going on. But she only gave a half-smile to Mr. Bates's inquiry as they both watched Thomas and George go into the hall.

George had gone down to see Thomas knowing him to be the only one in the manor with some medical knowledge, as well as the only one in the house who would keep his secrets if George was in the wrong for doing what he was doing. The small boy didn't know much, but he had a good gut intuition for medical situations. Two generations of doctors in his blood had not dissipated yet, and all these instincts were telling him that there was something bad about the medicine they had given the baby. He explained his paradox and troubles to Thomas, before giving him the vile. The man hadn't spent five seconds reading the label before his eyes went wide.

There was excited chatter in the servant's hall about the coming days when suddenly their merriment was broken by a violent slam of a pantry door being thrown open. George followed long enough to watch the servant's hall go from a place of coming merriment to exploding into chaos as Thomas Barrow charged up the stairs only half uniformed. The other staff was confused, some standing, other still sitting and questioning what it was all about. Mr. Carson, Mrs. Hughes, and Anna went after the other butler and the master of the house, shouting for both to explain what was going on. George followed up the stairs and rushed out to the manor's great hall, standing in front of the great lit tree that Thomas and himself had picked out personally. He watched the butler trip and stumble his way up the grand staircase. Anna had caught up with Thomas, pushing George out of the way on the second landing. It took only a moment for the desperate man to tell her what was happening, shaking the pediatric vile in manic fear. Then, without a break, the lady's maid and governess was suddenly following her colleague up the rest of the steps to go get Lady Mary and Lord and Lady Grantham at once.

George stayed at the second landing of the staircase, watching from below, as his mother, without a robe, sprinted from one side of the house to the other in her long form fitting silk nightgown, Henry trailing behind her. Next, he saw his Donk and Granny. One already dressed, the other in her morning robe, rushing to the nursery. George didn't follow or go up. He wasn't sure what the problem was, but he didn't want to get blamed for it, and he didn't want to get in trouble for bringing on this scramble. He waited by himself for a long time, listening to alarmed voices muffle loudly from the West Wing, drifting down the stairs to the small boy. He was frightened at the desperate and worrying sounds that were coming from the nursery. Finally, from somewhere deep inside, he got the courage to go up the stairs. The banister felt cold as he slid his hand over the polished wood, inching closer and closer to the angry and desperate raised voices thundering down the hall. When the small boy reached the top of the landing, he was met by Anna who had both Lady Grantham and his mama's winter coats, gloves, and hats in arm. It was obvious that they were going to the Hospital.

"It'll be okay." Anna said with a glassy eyed nod to the boy.

There was something desperately sad about the way she lovingly tugged on the curls sticking out of his deer stalker. She tried to hide her sniffle as she quickly paced down the hall toward the Nursery. It was then that George knew that Anna knew about something, about something terrible that had happened, to which there was nothing that could be done. The boy returned the nod but didn't believe in her teary-eyed comfort. Just as she turned into the shadowed corridor Anna was met suddenly by three figures that were storming down the hallway. His Donk was in a rage at Thomas. Henry was absently following behind them, as if he was in a daze, in a different world all together.

"Well, when the bloody hell were you gonna fix it?!"

"The roads are iced over, Your Lordship, there was nothing we could've done!"

"Then, who was the imbecilic who left the car out of the garage!"

"It wasn't anyone's fault, Your Lordship! No one saw the storm coming, no one!"

Suddenly Lady Mary rushed out of the nursery. George wasn't sure he had ever seen his usually frigid mother more terrified in his entire life. It made his legs weak, his heart sink into his stomach, and his hairs prickle on the back of his neck. If she was frightened, then her son was completely terrified. The sleek woman grabbed her husband's arm and looked to the Butler.

"Drive us to the hospital, now!" She demanded.

"I … I can't, M'lady." There was something devastated and in shock about the way the butler spoke. Thomas Barrow could barely look the panicked mother in the eye.

"Why not?!" Her red tinted amber eyes were infuriated.

"The engine is frozen. And none of the other cars have been adapted to the conditions."

There was something eerily calm and disconnected in the way Henry Talbot spoke. He looked down at the carpeted floor, at his feet, and saw nothing but the abyss of a blank mind reeling. His wife and her father turned to the man with looks of outrage and shock at the seemingly laconic reaction to it all.

"Wha …?" Mary's mouth hung open at the complete unwinnable situation. Thinking only moments ago she was talking about New Year's plans with a husband and a getaway holiday with George and Sybbie. Now her baby girl was in danger and the universe was plotting so nothing she could do could save her.

Thomas strode forward. "All we need is some stimulants to get her heart rate back up, M'lady!" He explained. "We just need someone to run to the hospital and get them!" Thomas pushed his way back into the nursery, the only one with the training to keep the baby going.

There was a long silence between the quietly frozen people in the hallway. Robert and his daughter met their gaze, the woman feeding off the dwindling strength of the pillar she had always leaned on in times of trouble. He motioned to Henry pointedly, all the words unspoken with one look telling her of what had to be done. Robert jogged back inside the nursery after Barrow.

Mary gave a hard swallow and turned to her husband. Henry was leaning against a column on the balcony overlook, staring blankly at the coats of arms that hung around the foyer of the manor. If one would've asked the dealership owner what day it was, he might never be able to have told you despite the tree and decorations.

"Henry …" Mary rushed to his side. "Henry, you have to go to the hospital!" She demanded. But the man didn't respond. He didn't even look his lovely wife in the eyes. "Henry!" She shook him hard. It took a beat or two till the man bit his bottom lip and finally met Lady Mary's gaze.

"Henry, you have to run to the hospital and get stimulants!" She searched his eyes in a panic.

"Mm ..." He acknowledged her. "Right … go get stimulants." He nodded and moved just an inch. But then stopped. He seemed to be a man in complete conflict with every thought and emotion, every movement and instinct. Henry Talbot's whole body was at war with itself. Grief, sorrow, panic, fear, it all took hold of him.

"Mary … I'm, I'm afraid." He looked up at her in a deep shock. "I'm afraid I can't …" He sniffed hard. "Mm …" He shook his head. "I … I can't." He was disappearing again.

"No … Henry, for god sake, Henry!" Mary shook him, tried to hold him up. But the man only sank slowly to the floor, his back against the overlook column.

It wasn't that Henry Talbot was a coward, or that he was a weak man. In his younger days he would've gone running before Mary had even left the nursery. But every man has a breaking point, and today Henry Talbot had reached his. Some would say that it was the beginning of the end when he witnessed the fiery death of his best friend on the race track. But after all the death that had surrounded him in the trenches for years, he had come to motorcar racing to try and escape those brutal memories, to try and outrun the German gun. He had made new friends. He had made a new life for himself. And each time he lost something, he found some other way to replace it, ever running from the memories of the Kaiser's men. He lost his brother and cousins on the Somme, so he raced cars. He lost his best friend on the track, so he married Mary Crawley. But now that he lost his baby girl … where was there to go? Where was there to run too anymore?

No matter where Henry Talbot ran, death found him.

"Henry, Henry … Henry! You have to get up! You have to get up and save our baby!"

Mary shook him, grabbed his face frantically. But no matter what she said, the man wouldn't move. He had completely shut down. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his arms hugging them tightly, shame on his face, deep, deep, shame. The beautiful woman would have had an easier time moving a stubborn mule, than a shell-shocked veteran who had lost too much.

Despair, sorrow, and fear, so much fear, ran through the woman on that Christmas Eve. It was a fear that went right down to the core, the kind that was only felt once in a lifetime. But for Lady Mary Talbot it was twice now that it had interrupted her life. It was a state of mind, a place so dark that it changes you forever. It had taken four years to recover from the death of her husband, and in those years, she had gone from cold, to haughty, to snobbish, to somewhere in between all of them just before marriage had been blissful. But she had never been the same Mary that Matthew had known and loved. Now, faced with the old dread, the emptiness again, there was no going back to even what little she had salvaged from the last time. As her daughter was clinging to life in extremis, all Mary could think was why couldn't she have died with Matthew? Why couldn't she have been driving back with him, George safely in the care of mama and Isobel?

Many years later no one who was there that day, who heard the story, and who watched what happened first hand will ever know what was going through Mary's half crazed mind. What she saw when she looked down the hallway at George watching her in the distance? No one was sure what she was thinking, what she thought would happen, or if she was thinking at all. So many years in an ice block, not even the ageless beauty knew why she did what she did. Maybe it was because of the dark abyss that she had skirted so closely so many times before? Maybe it was all the clawing and scraping to return to the world of the living? Or was it that George, who was always there for her in the dark days, never let her down?

Some would say later that in her desperation she saw the two people missing in her life, the two people who could never let her down. He was one part Matthew, one part Sybil, a baby born in tragedy there to replace all that was missing in her life. It was possible, after witnessing so many miraculous things, Matthew walking again, escaping from the lost patrol during the war, Reggie Swire's money. If she had prayed hard enough, their love, Mary and Matthew, 'The Lady and the Lawyer', had squared away one last miracle inside the little soul they created together from stardust.

All anyone knew was that what happened next would conceive a doom that would fall ever upon the future heirs of the House of Grantham for near a century.

"No …" Anna stepped in front of Mary before she reached George. "M'Lady, don't! It's already over!" She sounded forceful, and defiant. The woman knew what was about to happen. Even if it cost her everything, Anna Bates was the only one who tried to stop Lady Mary that morning from doing what she did.

There was something practically mad in the way her employer looked to her maid. "Get out of my way, Anna!" She snarled at the woman, grabbing the blonde by her arm and yanking her behind.

"Don't do this, m'lady, please! It's impossible!"

George looked from Anna to his mother in indecision. He didn't know what was going on. He had never seen the two women disagree, much less physically struggle. Nor had he ever seen his mother look this afraid or Anna in such desperation before. His pale, silky and sleek, mama dropped to her knees to get eye level with him. Her slender fingers were like cold hooks in vice on his arms.

"Darling, listen to me …" Her voice was very grave. "Cora is very sick …" She explained.

"M'Lady, please, don't do this!"

George gazed at Anna for a moment, but his mother grabbed his chin forcefully and turned his head to look her in the eye. "I … I know." He answered her with a frightened nod.

There was something empty in the fake smile she gave him. "Of course, you do." Lady Mary shook her head, her voice trembling in fax complement. There was something frantic in her red tinted eyes. "There's a way to make her better." She readjusted her grip on him.

"I'm begging you, don't make him do this …!"

The boy focused on Mary as she shut her eyes in anger at Anna's pleading. When she opened them, she was almost enticing in luring the small boy to her. "Darling, I need your help! Caroline, she needs your help!" She nodded so he'd comprehend what she was saying.

"I can help." He agreed without a moment's hesitation.

"Don't do this …!"

"Darling, listen to me." Mary centered him just as he was about to look back to Anna. "You have to do this! Do you understand me?!" his mother was stern, giving him a sudden sobering shake. "There's no one else!" Her voice cracked.

It was that one moment, in truth, that the House and County of Grantham would fall, their heirs exiled and lost.

George Crawley would point to that one moment as to why he did it when all hope had faded in his heart. He would always say, when questioned, that he guessed it was easier to try and do something than to stand around and do nothing, he supposed. But, in reality, in all of his life, in his most horrible nightmares, George Crawley knew it was the beautiful woman on her knees, breaking before him. It was when the strongest woman he ever knew nearly shook apart and dissolved into the abyss beyond the circles of the world. Mary Crawley nearly broke in front of her son, broke into tiny pieces that could never be put back together again. She was vulnerable, she was exposed, and that small boy that day, that hour, had never loved anyone more. He had loved Lady Mary Talbot so much that all he wanted to do was protect her, to make it better. When she nearly broke, George knew all the way back then that there was no going back, no backing out.

He'd do anything for her.

"I'll do it. I'll get the Stimulants from Grams at the hospital. I'll save Caroline, mama." He nodded with a conviction that was beyond its years ...

It was an impossibility that only a child could promise with such confidence.

"Thank you! Oh, my darling, thank you!" She pulled him close and kissed him all over his face. The light momentarily returned to her eyes, hope sprang once more into her breast as she held him close in her arms, heart, and soul like no one else before. It would be the last time for many long years afterward.

Tears were streaming down her milky cheeks as she reached back and began to pull items of clothing out of Anna's arms, not sparing her lady's maid even a look of contempt. She ripped off his deer stalker and wrapped Lady Grantham's dark blue scarf around his mouth and nose. Then, taking a pair of her own leather gloves, she pulled them over the boy's hands.

"Go get your coat and hat!" She shook him.

The boy paused. The whole situation was starting to catch up to him. His baby sister wasn't just sick. It wasn't like it was even a week ago. Something much worse was happening here. The young child was staring at Henry several yards away. He was watching a man that was staring right back at him. A single tear fell from the former auto racer's eye. And in that tear, in that face, and the way his mother was looking at him, in Anna's protests … it dawned on him.

The baby was dying.

"George …"

His chest was heaving and he felt light headed. The baby, his baby, his only friend, his baby sister was dying. She was dying and he was the only one who could save her.

"George!"

He snapped back to his mother when she shook him.

"Run …"

His mother shouted the same thing at him all the way down the steps. Her polished voice echoed desperately, helplessly, through the halls of Downton, maybe for hours, days, years, maybe till Judgment Day. He heard her as he put on his coat and hat. He heard her as he opened the glass door. It was the rowing cadence that worked little muscles to push open the heavy castle doors. It was the command that mixed in with the banshee's wail that met him when he hit the wall of solid cold air. Squinted little eyes were met with the bitten savageness of the elements and combating air pressure of hot and cold. And yet he heard the same thing in mind, heart, and soul.

**"Run, George, run!" **

Tom Branson, Lucy Smith, Lady Edith, Bertie Pelham, Lady Rose, and Atticus Aldridge could've all used a cup of hot coco at this point. When they had all met on the London train, they thought it a merry coincidence on such a fortuitous Christmas Eve. With Sybbie, Marigold, and Little Viki with them, they had all spent time away from Downton, busy with lives that were just starting out. Now that they were back, there was a certain feeling of home that was associated with the great house. It was a fortress built of the fondest of memories, in which they could hide away from the bustle of their world. There they could relax and once again rejoin one another's company.

But for all the merriment of the train ride, a great Christmas setting and early holiday celebration of excited chatter and joyful banter, they had found themselves in the aftermath of a storm. They were all standing in a great frosted winter land. They found themselves stranded at the station. It had been a long, frigid, hike through the icy, scenic, country, carrying their babies and luggage along the way. Mummy and Daddy switched every half a mile between baby and luggage, poor Tom Branson and Lucy Smith had both to haul. Every once in a while, Edith volunteered to carry both Sybbie and Marigold in each arm. It wasn't all too bad. Rose had kept their spirit up with her usual brand of positive and boundless energy that somehow always made everyone smile. If there was ever a bright light in the darkest places of the world it was the lovely Lady Rose. Yet, while Lucy continuously reminded everyone that in a few years they'd all remember this fondly, all they wanted was the warm fires and golden hued foyers of Downton Abbey. By the time they had spotted the gates of the great estate, they all cheered as if they were attending a competitive rugby match. In just a dozen more frozen minutes, they'd be in the warmth of the grand country manor.

It was Sybbie that first spotted the boy. She wanted to be let down to run to him, but Tom told her to stay in her Aunt Edith's arms. She wasn't in the right boots to be running around in this deep of snow. Edith was overjoyed to see the boy streaking toward them, but questioned what on earth Mary and Mama were doing letting the boy out in this ghastly weather. Atticus and Bertie were of the same mind. But for Rose, she almost tossed the luggage aside when she squatted down with open arms to catch the speeding comet into her embrace.

"George!"

"Hello, Darling!"

"George …"

"George?"

"George?!"

The boy raced right by his aunts and uncles as if he didn't know them, didn't see them. The little lightning bolt flashed right past Rose's open arms and split Atticus and Bertie, charging toward the village faster than anyone had ever seen a young child run. Sybbie and Marigold both shouted for their best friend and adopted brother in the distance, but even the girls he loved the most in the whole universe couldn't pierce the voice that was echoing through his single-track mind.

"Where the devil is he going so fast?"

"Something's wrong …"

"You don't mean it, Tom?"

"I think he's right."

"Let's get there!"

Even in the quiet of the empty beds and cold halls, there was still the ghostly echo of coughing, sneezing, and wheezing that haunted the village hospital. Every weary nurse and doctor could still hear the clamor of patients and the full wards when they walked through the hospital wings. But with the new supply of medicine, and the frosting starting to break, they had successfully put away many of the cases, though bleakly and tiredly. Isobel Grey, Lady Merton, had just been mentioning to Doctor Clarkson that you really couldn't hear the noise of triage till it stops, when George Crawley came bursting through the doors.

His Lady Grandmother had been expecting to see her grandson when she, Lord Merton, and The Dowager went down for dinner that night, and she'd certainly see him again tomorrow morning. Yet, none the less, she was happy to see the everlasting testament to her beloved son's great love. Though she couldn't fathom what he was doing out in the cold this early in the morning, wearing Cora's scarf and Mary's gloves. She had tried to hug him but was shocked when he pushed her away aggressively.

The boy began muffled shouts about Caroline, wrong medicine, and infant adrenaline. He kept shouting it at his grandmother and Doctor Clarkson in alarm till they got the full message. Isobel rushed to the medicine cabinet, anxious under the chorus of panic in her beloved boy's need of help. Yet, Clarkson ranted in denial as he followed the two, claiming that what the boy was saying was impossible. He'd stake his career, _his life_, that Caroline Talbot had gotten her medicine already. It was the only thing he'd ever say to anyone afterward. Fore when the board member opened the hospital cabinet, there on the shelf, was the pediatric vial with the baby Talbot's name on the label. Missing was the spare adult dosage of the same medicine.

Isobel was white as a sheet when she slowly looked back at Doctor Clarkson. She knew immediately what they had done, what had happened. They had given the baby the wrong dosage. Stunned mute, absent of any feeling in her shock, she met George's desperate request in a fog of routine, even putting both vials in a white pharmaceutical bag. There was no bidding farewell to a small boy she'd soon take guardianship over. There was no apology from Doctor Clarkson who was horrified beyond rationality of the mistake they had made. The board would eventually tell her it was an honest mistake, that it wasn't her fault, everyone gets old and that it was Lady Grantham's job to have seen that. But Isobel would never out live or down what happened that day. The poison of what will happen would age her overnight. And by Christmas Day she'd become a brooding, melancholy, old woman, nearly unrecognizable in spirit or attitude as she raised a haunted, haunted, young boy.

Powder and frost kicked up behind little legs that sprinted tirelessly past the gates of the estate one last time. The little boy's chest was on fire and ached so terribly, he couldn't feel his nose which was now bleeding profusely from the fierce cold. It felt like someone was stabbing his scalp with a knife as the frigid air cut threw his hat and layers. He felt as if there was something wet and hard crusting on the tips of his eyebrows and eyelashes. His face was red and raw, painful to the touch. But he kept going. He was almost there … he was almost home.

The child told himself that he would get there in time, he had too. That is how these things work. It'll be close, but then that was how it always went in the stories. But he'd make it, Thomas will give her the right drops, and everything will be fine again. And George Crawley would be a hero for once in his life.

The frozen gravel crunched and slushed under speeding feet as his breath misted heavily, sputtering, as he rushed past the old bench under the great tree. He wanted to stop for just a second, to catch his breath, to sit down for just a moment, even just lean on the tree. But his mother's voice kept screaming at him, his sister's disoriented eyes haunted his mind, as did the parting look Anna had given him. It was the same look that everyone had always given George. It was one of sympathy, one of faithlessness. He was poor George Crawley, cursed since the day he was born, the very same day his father died. Bless the heart of Little Master George who couldn't do anything right. But today that was going to change, today they'd all remember this Christmas forever …

And they would.

Someone had left one of the heavy double castle doors open. And when George rushed through, he found snow flurries blowing inside, sticking to the carpeted floors and glass doors, melting in the warmth. The boy was light headed, staggering when he stepped inside. The heat felt heavenly and foreign. He threw open the glass door with a violent bang and paused. The great hall of Downton was dark to the boy's eyesight … as dark as it got. After being out in the bright hue of daylight and the glow of newly fallen snow, the inside of the stately manor was shadowy and filled with gloom. The only beacon was the giant, lit, Christmas tree that sat in the middle of the house.

In front of the grand staircase, whose railing was wrapped elegantly in garland and tinsel, gathered the downstairs staff. Mrs. Patmore was hugging a crying Daisy. Mrs. Baxter was holding Mr. Mosley's hand. Mr. Carson was sitting on the steps next to Mrs. Hughes who was worriedly attending him. George saw that Anna was kneeling next to the old butler in fright, while Mr. Bates stood at the second landing keeping watch over them all. Obviously, the old butler wasn't sitting on the stairs voluntarily, having collapsed in shock and utter devastation. Mrs. Hughes was rubbing the emotional man's broad chest with tears of her own while her husband clutched Anna's hand, his other hand covering his eyes.

George sprinted toward the group, pushing his way through the crowd. He rushed past the fallen Butler, his wife, his nanny, and the valet. Mr. Bates reached for him, but didn't commit to it. There was no use, no help in keeping him with the staff. It broke his heart to realize that there would be no protecting the young master from what was up there. When George reached the middle of the grand staircase, he stopped. All the eyes of the staff, everyone that made his world what it was, were on his back. The boy stood silhouetted against the bright lights of Christmas for a long beat. He wanted to look back at all of them, but he couldn't. If the boy had done it, if he allowed himself to do so … then he'd know for sure.

He'd know he failed.

Skipping two steps all the way up, the hospital bag crinkling the whole way, George finished his ascent of the famous staircase with bouncing thud of fast legs. When he reached the gallery, he saw that Henry Talbot was in the same place. He was weeping quietly, rocking back and forth, face buried into his knees. When George breathlessly jogged up, the man looked up from his silent sobbing. His stepfather was almost unrecognizable. Grief had twisted the handsome face that was shadowed in the grand tree lights from below. His cheeks were soaked with tears, and there was no composure as he rocked back and forth. He gave only the briefest looks to the bag in the boy's hand. Something strangled escaped from his throat then. Whither it was a laugh, sob, or both, George would puzzle on it till the day he died. The man buried his face into his knees and took no more notice of the boy.

Little feet didn't halt till they had slid smoothly to a stop amongst the small group of people that had gathered outside the nursery. The small child looked spent, exhausted, torn to pieces from the elements … but mostly he was just terribly cold. He was breathing heavily as he looked around him. Rose was shaking inaudibly, her face buried deeply into Atticus Aldridge's chest, his arms protectively holding the young woman to him. In the corner Robert Crawley was leaning his head against the corridor wall, his teary eyed daughter Edith, held him from behind tightly. From the moment the guests had been told what had happened, Lady Edith had asked Bertie and Lucy to take the little girls to her room. It was an act of a quick-thinking mother that would spare their little beloveds' sorrow and nightmares for lifetimes to come …

It was a mercy that would not be gifted to George.

Looking around, the boy found his mother. Lady Mary was on the floor outside the door. She looked lost in a world of pain that was so deeply internalized that she looked numbed to the world, to the very spectrum of human feelings. On one side of her, Tom Branson was on his knees, holding one of her hands, whispering heartfelt comforts. On the other side was Lady Grantham pressed tightly to Mary's side, petting her hair, burying her tear strewn face into her daughter's bare shoulder, kissing it comfortingly.

"Mama …" George panted heavily rushing in front of them. "Mama … I got it! I got the medicine!" the suddenly threadbare, torn-up, young child pulled down his granny's scarf, sticky blood rushed down his nose. In his gloved hand he held the crumpled white bag out to her. There was never more urgency in a young child's voice, never had there been such courageous hope in dark blue eyes. It was just like the stories, everyone was sad, given up hope, but just then George would arrive and save the day. Caroline was tied to the train tracks and George had the swashbuckler's saber that would cut her free just at the last moment.

Red tinted eyes slowly lifted to examine the threat bare and torn bloodied child, crusted in frozen powder and frost. Her eyes focused on the white paper bag in his gloved hand. She stared at it for a long time, before she returned to the boy. Then, Lady Mary Crawley Talbot turned to this amalgamation of everything in her past that she loved so much, the people that would never let her down …

Till now.

As long as George Crawley lived, it would haunt him, the way his mama looked at him, her own child. It was sharp, venomous, and filled with the deepest of hate. There were no words that needed to be spoken to communicate how disappointing he was at that very moment, standing in front of her. The boy took a visible step back at his mother's reaction to seeing him, seeing all of them inside the boy who had just let her down. But the vicious gaze followed even as he retreated. She hated him. Lady Mary Talbot hated everything about George Crawley in that moment. He saw it in her eyes, in her heart, and in her soul.

Lady Grantham noticed her grandson and was visibly stricken by his weathered and bloody appearance. She saw the hospital bag in his tiny hands and slowly turned to Mary. It was a face that only had been used once in her life, when the son of a Turkish Ambassador was naked and lay dead in her eldest daughter's bed. She couldn't fathom, even in her grief, how anyone could do that to a child. How her own daughter could put that sweet girl's life on the shoulders of a small boy, knowing what she did the moment she got to the nursery, the sheer impossibility of the doomed mission he had been sent on. The only thing that covered the horrible spotlights that was murdering the small boy's soul was Cora Crawley's gentle hand that cupped her girl's eyes and pulled her into the crook of her neck. It was an action that kept her venomous gaze off of the boy.

There was no comprehension of why she was mad, why she hated him. George had done exactly what she wanted him to do. He had run all the way to the village, he had gotten the medicine, and ran back. There was nothing more he could've done. He did what she wanted him to do. He stared at his mother and grandmother, the pale woman blindly pulling Tom's hand to her chest in sorrow. She needed everyone, all her family, all of their love …

Everyone, except George.

Slowly, the boy looked around and saw that all eyes were on him. His family had seen their exchange, the bag in his hand. In their eyes he saw sorrow turn to something else entirely. But it was not sympathy, compassion, or understanding for the weather worn and blooded child before them. In that whirlwind of emotion, pain, and despair, they chose to put all those things into a boy that had in his hand the one thing that was needed. Yet, as usual, he had come all too late. In their minds, in their stricken hearts, they suddenly remembered every ill spoken word about the child. They remembered that the boy was slow to his numbers, his letters, slow to grow out of habits … they realized that George Crawley was just slow. The small child looked around him and found himself surrounded suddenly by angry and viciously disappointed looks from his family, a family who, so suddenly, didn't want to be associated with him, know him. It was simply a family that didn't want him anymore, period.

Something died inside the boy that day. It was something that would never able to be saved or resurrected. He'd see that look in his dreams, in his waking mind, and in everything important he'd ever do. No matter if he had failed or if he had won, it would be all about the same, fore he'd only ever see those misplaced hateful looks on that one fateful Christmas Eve Morning.

Suddenly, the nursery door opened. When the boy saw that it was Thomas, he quickly moved two steps, holding the hospital bag out toward him. But he stopped himself, halted any words that he might have said. Seeing the man walking out, his arms full, George lowered the bag to his side. He followed the man with his gaze, watching the motionless bundle in his arms. Slowly, sadly, he crumpled his flat cap in his hand and pulled it off from the side of his head, letting snow caked curls fall wildly out with a frigid dusting as they passed.

The baby looked like she was sleeping.

There were many things that came to mind as he watched Thomas carry her away. He remembered the day she was born, sitting at the table with the rest of the men of the family. Donk had his hands behind his back as he stared out the window, Bertie counting cigars, Uncle Tom making jokes to crack a smile out of a nervously sweating Henry. George had joined Donk at the window, copying his posture and stance. The older man looked down, smiled, and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder as the Lord and his Heir shared the view. When Anna came down the stairs, smiling, they knew that she had come through it. He still remembered Henry turning to him. "Shall we go see?" He had asked as he lifted the boy and carried him up the stairs.

He remembered every giggle, cry, smile, and tear that had been shed since that late night he curled up in his mother's lap and held little Caroline Talbot for the first time. The way the baby used to quiet as he began reading his books to her, making the voices to get a response out of her. How she'd reach for him, when no one else had. All of it was flashing through his mind as he watched Thomas solemnly tread down the hall with what remained of all the happiest of the most innocent loves. But the thing that got to him most, that would tear him to pieces some nights, rip him hollow on others, through the long hard years that would follow this day. After everything he had done, all the hardships, and doomed charges made on behalf of the beautiful little baby whose picture only conjured joy, happiness, and contentment in his darkest, loneliest times …

George never got to say goodbye.

When Thomas was gone, the family had cleared away. Tom and Cora helped Mary to her feet and walked her to her room. Atticus and Rose followed, both mother and father, desperately needing the company of their own little girl in the private of Rose's old room. Edith helped her father, neither letting go of the other as they walked away to help Mary in any way they could. With Tom's help, even Henry was helped back to his feet and escorted to another part of the house. But for one last time, forgotten in the vortex that Lady Mary had drawn around her in grief, was George Crawley.

Soon enough, the small boy, windblown, bloody, and covered in the elements found that he was utterly alone. He stared inside the empty nursery where so many happy memories had lived from Sybbie and Marigold, to the baby. Then, with head hung low in grievous defeat, he trudged away to his lonesome room at the end of the hall.

"You forgot this …"

George turned his head morosely to find a young woman standing in a satin gown of champaign and jet. Her long raven tresses were pinned back in a stylishly elegant bun of a, then, Ms. Anna Smith's crafting. The small child and elegant youth had matching eyes, curls, and facial features. He didn't know the woman, but George had stopped questioning the randomness of high born guests that stayed at the estate while passing through or attended dinner. In her silky gloved hands was George's book.

The boy walked up to the woman. There was something deeply broken about the way he stared at the book in her hand. It was about airplane racing, and it was the baby's favorite. Mostly because George would read off the tactics, and somewhere in the middle, he'd orate and reenact mesmerizing races and dogfights that he made up to entertain himself and the baby. Whenever she saw the blue and gold cover, she'd bounce her little knees and laugh, knowing that a good story was coming. A single tear drop fell on the book cover as the boy took it from the beautiful young woman.

"Thank you …" There was nothing but heart break in the quiet polite little voice. He placed the book under arm and turned to leave dejectedly.

The girl reached out and grabbed him back as gentle as could be imagined. She sank to her knees in front of him, coming eye level with the most broken of hearts that had ever been seen. She cupped his cold face in her warm silk gloved hands.

"You don't have to worry about her anymore … not anymore." She shook her head, rubbing a silky thumb over his wet cheek.

George sniffed hard. "I wish I still could." He brokenly sobbed in admittance with shaking shoulders.

The woman shed a single tear as she folded the boy in her arms and held him close. She kissed his temple the way her mother had once done to her, the way she had only done once for her own baby girl, before death had claimed the young woman just across the hall from the boy's own room. But squished together in a tight embrace, the young beauty held the broken child so very close in a deep and great love that would be missing for many long years afterward. George sobbed quietly in the warm and loving embrace of a woman who would appear to him many times over the years to protect and love him in times of despair and danger unimaginable. She would be a woman he would never remember after she would disappear.

She was a woman he had only ever seen in a picture on his Uncle Tom's nightstand.


	2. Opening Crawl

_("World of Tomorrow" – Edward Shearmur)_

**DOWNTON ABBEY: THE GRAIL OF PRAGUE SAGA **

**Prologue**

**The Creggan White Hare**

_Wedding Bells! As the pages of the year 1935 turn, the people of the British Imperium and America clamor for the **"WEDDING OF THE CENTURY"**. In months' time Lady Mary Crawley and - Hollywood Royalty - Roger Sinclair will walk down the aisle to the largest society wedding in perhaps the history of both countries. There is no escape from the excitement and speculation of the grand event that has taken over Downton Abbey and the lives that revolve around it._

_But suspicion of a gathering shadow around their home has moved Lord and Lady Grantham to send four of their most trusted family members to America with a mysterious letter to be delivered to their long missing heir, exiled by **Royal Decree** eight years ago._

_ Fearing the newly returned Lady Hexham and Tom Branson from America, and the reply they carry, the vile forces who have infiltrated the Crawley family move swiftly to counter Lord and Lady Grantham and stop the return of the **Heir of Grantham**._

_Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, A young adventurer, contemplating a letter, searches through the ruins of a Newport manor house in Rhode Island for a treasure that the beautiful heiress Ms. Cora Levinson left behind. However, it has become a race against the clock as the mercenary forces of a former **Ottoman Noble House** has followed him …_

_ Longing, at the last, to extract vengeance for a sin committed long ago in **Lady Mary Crawley's** bed._


	3. Enta Geweorc - Part I

**Enta Geweorc**

**Part I**

_The glimmer of starlight seemed to curtain the milky sheen of night that hung heavy over the vibrant atmosphere. The sweet smell of roses whiffed from the golden glow of chandelier light thrown by opulent crystals out into the darkness where the rushing noise of ocean surf breaking against rock could be heard at a thunder. The jagged cliff face obscured all sight of the meeting of the two elements in an inky black shade. Below the stone railing one only heard the vacuous chorus of the infinite nothing that lay at the edges of the circles of the world. Here, on this night, the rose vine wrapped marble balcony seemed to be the edge of the world itself, the edge of all understanding of wisdom and folly. To look out at the vast darkness which bore no light, there was but a torrent of rage and elemental power of the open ocean that makes one feel so small._

_And tonight, there was not a man in the world who felt smaller than the figure that kept watch over the nothing. If he tried hard enough, really put forth all his power, he might even see himself looking back through that abyss. He relished the chill in the air, the overwhelming salt of the cold sea that ran far to a distant home where it seemed nothing waited for him. He was not upon its all-encompassing grandeur, yet, the man in red army uniform felt as if he was lost on it. He was set adrift without a paddle, without a prayer, floating off to God knows where. The young man felt that he had the drive, the wherewithal, to paddle, but to where? Surely there was an actual house, a large estate, out there. But it seemed so empty, half buried in its grave already. _

_Most people didn't believe in nor saw the point in Downton Abbey. But its heir disagreed, in fact he couldn't struggle harder against these notions. What was Downton Abbey but a crumbling heirloom? He could say that it was history, a living, breathing, reminder of everything in which their Kingdom, their Empire was built from. It was in these grand country houses which determination, courage, and blood spilt built such a great people, a great civilization. _

_Downton Abbey was the home of the founder of the House of Grantham. An illegitimate son of Lady Catherine Percy and an unknown father that had forced himself upon her after her husband "Hotspur's" failed rebellion against the Progenerate of the Lancastrian House. For years the first Lords of Grantham "The Black Dragons of York" fought for and were loyal to King Edward IV during their many victorious battles against the French Kings and the Lancastrian foes. The House of Grantham remained Loyal to Queen Elizabeth Woodville, refusing to serve the Usurper Richard III nor paying homage to the Tudors. _

_Though guardians of the land for many centuries, their ownership was gifted by Lady Margaret Pole, their second matriarch. It wasn't till the early 18__th__ Century that they were finally granted the full title and county that was denied by the Tudors for dubious loyalties in the years of Henry VII and later their ancestry from Lady Pole during the reigns of Henry the VIII and Queen Elizabeth. The House of Grantham's poverty lasted through their support of the House of Stuart during the Civil War and it became a house divided between Georgian and Jacobite for near a century. Yet, since a Catholic Jacobite Grantham sired an heir upon a Countess who was forced into a marriage to his Georgian brother. It was hurt pride from a barren Protestant Lord that centuries of Earls raised their sons with iron rod to conform them into the most ardent British Patriots, Anglican Protestants, and Georgian Royalists. For centuries the many Earls of Grantham ever tried to hide or rewrite their history in taught shame. They wished to ever remake a House founded by the rape of a great noble beauty and continued through the line of the deadliest Knights of the House of York. They were ruined by the paranoia of Margarete Beaufort, returned to prominence by Queen Catherine of Aragon, ruined again through descent of Lady Pole. Then they were garnered as traitors and rebels as supporters of the "The King Across the Water" during every Jacobite Rebellion. _

_They were all a link in a mighty chain that went back to just before the War of Roses. But since the days of the latest Heir of the House of Grantham's grandfather, the Crawley chain was considered by most to be a rusted and useless one. It was said that no starving man should ever look too closely at the bones of his soup, fore he might not like what he finds. But when everyone else knows what bones was in his soup, they could all scoff and mock what was in others and not mind what was in theirs. And here there came the great rub of the whole bloody business. Since his grandmother had sold all the family secrets to her lovers, there was not a great family in all the Imperium who hadn't mocked the House of Grantham. Born of rape, sons of a Plantagenet traitor, and the bastards of a Jacobite Rebel that died on Culloden Field. The great splendor of the Gothic Castle in the lush forest and moors of Yorkshire was but a cheap house, filled with a cheap family. _

_For a long time, the young officer didn't see what the problem was. Lady Percy, their Matriarch, was important enough to be included in Shakespeare. Lady Pole was a Martyr of the Catholic Church. And each Crawley Lord had served honorably in His Majesties Army since the Napoleonic Wars. But as the years went by, through Eton, Oxford, and then Brighton the constant teasing, the curdled shame in his mother's eyes when he tried to defend these supposed stains upon their honor had he conceded the point in public. But most of all, the demeaning scoffs of his father, the Earl, had tampered his passion for the fight. Now, he didn't know quite what to do anymore. He knew in his bones that there should be shame for such a terrible history. Yet, when he looked upon Downton, banners caught in the late afternoon breeze at the top of the spires of the lone tower, he couldn't bring himself to feel shame in that marvelous relic. _

_He had left it some years ago, determined to save it. He remembered the stinging mockery that had followed his proclamation at dinner the night before his departure. His father had already accepted defeat, his mother thought it unseemly a prospect. Of course, she had her own plans for the worst, never thinking him practical in plotting. His sister thought him so very self-important, her distaste for their own family was not withstanding. But then … he couldn't blame her for that. If he was only a rather large disappointment to their father, than he'd consider that a gold standard compared to what that poor lovely girl had to live with all these years. He tried not to think of it, if he did, he might be dissuaded from his mission. If he thought about what their father had done to his sister, made her do in the night when they were young. And all of it as a form of the young officer's punishment, making him watch what the Earl did to his own daughter to punish a son … _

_He might also agree that it was time for the House of Grantham to end. _

_But now entering his fifth year of his crusade, he had found himself at the breaking point. It wasn't that he could not find a solution, as it was that he questioned his methods. Was it all worth it? Were the fluttering flags at the top of the spire, the first strands of sunrise that touches the tops of the wooded Yorkshire hills, the way the shadows stretched languidly in the spring sunsets. Was all that worth the sacrificing of his honor? It seemed to contradict everything he believed. How would dishonor save honor? Surely a thief could steal to feed his family, but surely a filled belly would not help a burdened consciousness sleep at night. Thus, he found himself in the great trap. He would forever swear that there was something more, greater, about that old house that was spat upon. Yet, would he be just one more miserable bastard who would do anything to keep his family's reputation on the top? _

_They were questions that loomed and disappeared like smoke rings in the dark that floated out to the thunderous crash of the midnight foam. _

_From behind the red uniformed youth there came a growing visibility that was cast upon his brooding silhouette. The concentration of a strobing golden and crystalline light was enhanced by the slow opening of a glass door by a stalwart footman in white powder wig, Rococo uniform, and lacey ascot. He stood at attention like a soldier sentry, his gloved hand effortlessly holding the door open for a young woman who exited the gigantic marble, gilded, crystal glass dome ballroom. Behind her the sound of a hundred-piece orchestra playing "The Blue Danube" echoed with a bravos power as the swelling music escaped the ballroom onto the marble balcony and then out into the salty night. _

_Behind the girl there was commotion and noise that flittered about. Young women in silk and lace evening gowns of the most exquisite cuts moved with a precision and elegance. One gloved hand lifted the hems of the dress, the other holding onto their partner's shoulders as they all moved across the polished and glistering floor in an ordered chaos. The multi-colored material of the large skirts of their ball gowns, and the crystal, gold, and gems in their hair made hundreds of dancers, moving in perfect unison to the orchestra, seem like dancing flowers. Their glimmering buds sparkled with every twirl in golden light. While in the wings of the choregraphed spectacle, other girls waited or rested, watching, clutching their dance cards. Otherwise their managing mothers looked over it while their girl, 'discretely', munched on a midnight snack while being criticized for who, amongst the male guests, they allowed to scratch their name on the card. Or otherwise plot who they should try and convince to write their name upon it._

_Yet, sidelining herself from the obvious and blood thirsty game that was a summer ball, was the prize gem of the entire contest. She was supposed to be the first mate of the ship, the Queen of Love and Beauty of this rancorous and lively tourney. The entire grandeur and spectacle of this one of a lifetime event had all been thrown for her benefit. She was the reason that so many men in tails, bowties, and waxed mustaches had come four to five a cart, all just to catch a glimpse of not just this breathtaking new palatial manor house, but to catch a glimpse of the princess who it was all built for._

_And tonight, of all nights, she did not disappoint. _

_The girl was like the North Star found in the veiled obscurity of the night sky. There was a certain gravity to her appearance that pulled everyone into her orbit. And where she stood there was a raucous amount of laughter. The magnetism of this one figure pulled even the most ardent of Knickerbocker skeptic toward her. No one could take their eyes off her. She was beautiful beyond words. Her gown was the purest of blue that was made of the finest silk that Mr. Worth had ever sown into the many collections he designed personally. She wore half gloves made of a very fine see through lace which had vine and rose work intermingled into the design. Her extra-long raven curls were up in intricate designs that was elegant and smooth. The silver of her ornate netted hairpiece held in place a great sapphire that she wore upon her brow. The color of the silk and ribbon dress along with the gem resting on her forehead had matched her cerulean eyes, making them seem aglow in the gilded and crystal light that reflected into the dark night._

_There was a soft smirk on her ruby lips to see the lone figure standing on the empty balcony staring out at the dark. For being a such a bright and inescapable star in the social eye of two countries, she found in contrast that there was something indescribably unique about the ceaseless, ingrained, melancholy of the figure that stood apart from the devil-may-care attitude of every one of their contemporaries. Yet, though he did put on a good show, and his motivations were much like every other eligible Peer in the British Empire, there was something different about this one._

_He didn't wear his heart upon his sleeve, but his mind was rarely guarded. While other young men around her, both American and British, talked of sports and extravagance, thinly veiling the brags in their self-indulgent conversation. When she was near this, particular, young man, he only spoke of a sort of philosophy, of moral quandary that he himself was never quite sure of. While most of her days were spent talking of racing horses, investment, polo matches, and God forbid more gossip than she could shake a stick at. When she was around the broad shouldered and tall young army officer, she found herself talking of the platitude of honor, the morality of the whole exercise of courting for the cause in which he was._

_One might have thought him a poor hunter if he lowers his weapons to ask his prey how they felt about being prey, and if they grudged him for taking aim, or if even he should take grudge upon himself for it. At the first, the glimmering princess found herself flabbergasted at such an approach. Never once, not even by mother, had anyone asked her how she felt about the whole thing. Yet, he pressed her for an answer, a real answer, fore, in chuckled admittance, he had none for himself. In all of her sixteen years she had never met a man that had ever questioned so much, questioned even himself. Yet, he was no less confident than any other, but still self-aware to a sensitivity that she had never seen in another man. And the truth was that she found herself thinking of him all the time now, pondering the questions he posed to her in honest comradery of two pawns playing a game of money and power. He was the most honest fortune hunter she ever met, not swaggering, only conflicted of if the ungallant necessity, that most of her suitors do not even blink at, makes him a villain in the larger picture of their intertwining chapters in life. _

_Yet, while he knew her to be beautiful and magnetic to a fault. He was always outwardly confessing, convinced, that he was at the bottom rung of this American Princess's choices. But after London, New York, and now here, she was not wholly surprised to contradict him in her heart. Like he saw in her, the girl would admit to his external and glossy features of handsomeness, sophisticated dash, and soldier's dare. But perhaps what she loved the most of him was his devotion to his cause. When he spoke of Down … Dow … Downtown Abbey? When he spoke of his home, he seemed to lose himself in a dream. _

_He'd seat them on a log on a country stroll, take her hand, and argue his case to her of why it shouldn't be abandoned, why there was still good in his name. But what she loved about those moments, was that he was not pitching himself to her for daddy's money. He just wanted to be heard and seen, to say aloud what was in his heart that had been bitterly denied by everyone else in his life. And soon enough she found herself included, felt herself dreaming his dream. Without warning, without hesitation, the girl felt that she was all a part of it now. That this restoration, this vision of what could be, was put into her heart, living and breathing within her. She found herself reading books about agriculture, business, and architecture. She began keeping track of market values, picking the brain of Daddy and Harold about what best to invest in for Transatlantic commerce. While her poor Viscount of Downton Abbey tormented himself over his loss of honor and the moral questions of should he even pursue her. The girl was already rebuilding this crumbling and notorious English Country Estate in her head and her heart. _

"_You seem very downcast …" _

_The beauty made a pouty, playful, face as she paced to the British Officer's side. When he turned to look at her, he couldn't help but smirk at her talent for silly and humorous faces. But, none the less, he returned to his brooding. She couldn't help but notice how excellent he was at that. No one she knew ever cut such a dashingly serious figure as this man she had grown to love so absolutely. When he didn't say anything, the girl looked around in momentary playfulness, before studying him with a jovial squint of suspicion. Then, with a sigh, she nuzzled her chin atop his shoulder epilate, sharing his view. _

_The beauty knew that at this point the man could not bring himself to love her, fore he might not have trusted the instinct, seeing any such strong emotional complexion as justifying a dishonorable ambition. Yet, he would settle for a deeper friendship, a closer friendship than he had with some of the men in his own Regiment or even of the chaps he grew up with, like Shrimpie Flintshire. And as such he did not flinch from her familiarity. _

"_You brought a sword to a ball?" The girl asked teasingly. _

_The man looked down hearing the rattle of his officer's saber as the teenage girl wiggled it with a hand. He looked over his shoulder at her smiling face. Even at his darkest hour, he couldn't hide the joy that such a simple look from her could bring out of him. He scoffed a chuckle and looked back out at the night. _

"_I don't quite have the customs of your country down. I thought that there would be a formal dinner, not a ball." He defended himself to the best of his abilities. _

"_Yes, well, mother likes both. The ball starts at eight, dinner is at midnight, and the whole thing ends at six, if you can believe that." She informed him, rocking her head back and forth, going over the schedule that had been beaten into her head. _

"_Seems a bit much …" The Englishman said quietly. _

_The girl frowned in amusement. "You've met my mother … does it, though?" She asked. _

"_I see your point." He smiled with concession. _

"_And then she expects everyone to be up and ready for a morning bicycle ride to a luncheon picnic on the other side of the property." Her eyes glinted in a smile plastered on her face as she looked over his features so closely, her nose near his ear. _

"_Balls … I mean Crickey …" He caught himself in a swear that the American Heiress hadn't ever heard of before. "My training instructors when I was at Brighton didn't demand so much from their cadets." He admitted with just a bit of intimidation. "Does she take us for Zulu, able to run through the night and still be able to fight?" the man questioned good naturally._

_The girl giggled into his shoulder. "Well, if it'll be a fight, you will have the advantage." She bit her lip, moving the saber up and down playfully in its scabbard. "You could be my personal bodyguard …" She offered with flirty jovialness. _

"_Well, there's no shortage of people out to get you …" Suddenly the repartee took a darker tone, as his off handed observation brought a crushing reality back to his world. In just a turn of playful phrase he realized that he was one such of these people after her for no better reasons. _

_There was a look of sympathy, of disappointment, on the shimmering beauty to hear him grow distant again. She had borne witness from afar of the exchange of what sent him outside. Of all the horrible Knickerbocker wenches in all of New York, Why had mother invited Maryse Van Houten? Yet, she knew that Mother had done it so that Mrs. Van Houten would accompany her nasty daughter in order to rub in their noses what a difference two years make. Where once the Dutch Queen of the hundred founding families of New Amsterdam, had control of New York society. Now, it was her family, a Southern Belle with a large Cotton Concern in New Orleans and a husband with a tin fortune in Cincinnati. Now they, along with Ava Vanderbilt, and many other matriarchs of the "nouveau riche" were calling the shots in New York. Their two daughters, Consuelo Vanderbilt and herself, were the toast of two cities, two countries, and two empires. _

_Yet, somehow, some way, Maryse knew just where to hit her poor, gallant, officer. She must have thought him a small fish in the concern of the pursuit of her hand. There were Marquises and Dukes competing with Oil and Cattle Baron millionaires. What would a lowly Viscount, heir to a notorious Earldom, have against such captains of industry that were so diversified the world over? Yet, no one could blame Maryse Van Houten for thinking him small potatoes, fore not even her own mother knew yet of the girl's affinity, friendship, and even love for such a localized figure of some obscure Yorkshire Estate. Yet, if that vile Dutch cow had only known him to be the only one in the race, then she might have done so much worse damage to her warrior poet. _

"_You shouldn't take anything that Maryse Van Houten says seriously, we don't. That Knickerbocker sow is only mad, because, Consuelo told me, that Billy Roosevelt said that her father can't get the better Opera Companies to play at their concert halls like Daddy can for ours. So now she's got a bee in her bonnet and is looking for any sort of way to spoil my ball."_

_There was a girlish entitled and spoiled immaturity that showed her age as she took to a gossipy tone. Popping a grape in her mouth, she talked as she chewed with a finishing chortle that spoke to someone who, despite her regal elegance, thrived off interpersonal drama. But when she looked to the man with a petulant commiseration, she received no reply, only a soft sigh and a shift of posture. Swallowing her grape, the girl tightened her cheek, looking back to the gilded ballroom, before wiping her nose on her crafted lace thumb gauntlet distractedly in one more show of a true age well covered by regal dress and beauty._

_She sensed that there was something wrong, something she said that bothered him. The realization hit the teenage beauty in the confidence, knowing her mother's favorite phrase to snap at her was "alright, shut up" for this exact reason … sometimes she was 'one of them stray chattering monkeys, full of them shines' as her nanny maid Annie would say throughout her childhood in New Orleans. _

_Sensing her distress, the officer turned back with a forgiving sigh. "It's not you …" He frowned. _

"_Only that it is …" She said petulantly under her breath with baiting guilt. _

_He breathed unsteadily. "Well, it's not you, I …" he seemed a loss of what to say, or perhaps how to say what it was. "It's just this place, I believe." He shook his head. "In my country we don't openly speak of money, nor hold it over one's head when you don't have it." He paused. Then, after a moment he looked humble. "Well, at least not in public or social settings." He shrugged. _

_Suddenly an avalanche of guilt fell over the princess. Weeks, months, of conversations about a failing estate, a faltering noble name, had gone out the window in a moment of cat like nature. For the girl, she could not think of once in which she did not have everything, in which her family was not at the top of every list in New York, Newport, New Orleans, and Cincinnati. But as of this moment she realized that she had miscalculated gravely. Though, in her world, the gossipy nature of what one has and what one does not was how girls her age fought with one another. She did not think how she must have sounded to someone who really didn't have anything anymore. How horrid she must have sounded, how terribly uncouth and cruel. _

"_I'm sorry …" She clutched his arm. "I'm so sorry." She began. _

"_It's alright, my darling." He said easily. _

"_No, no, I'm such a terrible fool. I'm a damned fool chattering monkey full of shines." She admitted in a torrented rush of mortification. _

_To the admittance, there was a heavily amused and confused look on the British Officer's face at the strange dialect of southern American tongue the girl suddenly slipped into, breaking her aristocratic conditioning. But seeing her genuine distress at offending him, he only settled her with a hand to her back to make sure that she knew that it was alright. However, in that moment, without a thought, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, the American Socialite stepped into him, folding herself into his arms as she lain her head against his chest with apology in the warm affection. _

_Suddenly the man found himself holding the most beautiful prize on two continents looking over the vast expanse of darkness. _

_For just a moment, a blink, he allowed himself to feel what any man would feel holding such an angelic creature. But he quickly put it from his mind, refusing to justify his low cunning to high ambitions. He would not dishonor himself or this beauty by pretending that there was anything more to this than a business arrangement. Yet, he could not put such strong emotions from his heart as the abyss dissipated before his very eyes._

_And when Robert Crawley held Ms. Cora Levinson for the first time, he saw only the beauty of starlight upon the midnight waters … _

* * *

_These wall-stones are wondrous —  
calamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants  
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.  
Ice at the joints has unroofed the barred-gates, sheared  
the scarred storm-walls have disappeared—  
the years have gnawed them from beneath. A grave-grip holds  
the master-crafters, decrepit and departed, in the ground's harsh  
grasp, until one hundred generations of human-nations have  
trod past. Subsequently this wall, lichen-grey and rust-stained,  
often experiencing one kingdom after another,  
standing still under storms, high and wide—  
it failed—_

_The strong-purposed mind was urged to a keen-minded desire  
in concentric circles; the stout-hearted bound  
wall-roots wondrously together with wire. The halls of the city  
once were bright: there were many bath-houses,  
a lofty treasury of peaked roofs, many troop-roads, many mead-halls  
filled with human-joys until that terrible chance changed all that._

**"_The Ruin" - (9__th__ Century Anglo-Saxon Riddle)_**

* * *

_**Rhode Island**_

_**1935**_

**BANG!**

"Ah, Goddamnit!"

**BANG!**

"It's pretty big, I don't think I've ever been in a room this big before …"

**BANG!**

"It's like Grand Central Station …"

**BANG!**

"Or like …"

"I'm sorry, Sid, am I cut'in into your tour of the sites? Do ya need a minute or some'in?"

"Nah, I'm just sayin …"

"I don't give a shit! Dada dedada da du, shut the fuck up! Now get ova'here and help, damn it!"

"Sorry …"

"Now on three … one, two, three …"

**DUNG!**

**BANG!**

"I said three, shithead!"

"I did it on three!"

"No, no, not on three, it goes one, two, three … then you do it!"

"Then, on four?"

"No, on three!"

"But if there's a pause after three, then it would be four!"

_THUNGK!_

"Ah-ow!"

"Does that clear it up, fuckhead?!"

"It clears my head …"

"Well, there you go … now on three."

"You mean four …"

"Do you want me to shove your fuckin head into it again?"

"No …"

"Then, on three, asshole!"

"One, Two, _THREE_ …"

**BANG**!

Rusted and corroded metal frames of a salt calcified double door made of towering glass panes broke open with a loud swinging fury. There was a rustle of sea birds that squawked lustily in fear as a rain of white feathers floated in a cloud to accompany the flutter of a dozen wings. A squadron of gulls cried into the distance as they fled their perches. From the shadows two figures walked out into the noon tide sun that hung high above a cloudless blue sky.

Both men wore tailored zoot suits with wide brim fedoras. They were a duo of contrasts, one a taller and square shouldered Sicilian with olive complexion and big double-breasted buttons on his white and grey pinstriped suit. His partner was a shorter man with glasses and a large Roman nose. He wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and had tiny squint eyes. His brown jacket fit him, but his matching trousers seemed to be baggier than usual. His mustard yellow shirt also spoke to a questionable taste that rivaled his out of place association with the larger of the two. He looked more like a bank teller, a newspaper man, than a hardened criminal. Yet, here he was, as usual, tailing a cousin that ever felt put upon looking after a shrimp that couldn't seem to do anything right.

The two men, billy clubs in hand, walked out onto a filthy, neglected, marble balcony that jutted out over an open ocean. Below the cliff face to which the tall manor stood upon, they could see the rush of greenish blue water crash with violent white foam against jagged rocks. In front of them there sat a broken and weathered railing that was wrapped with rose vines that had gone wild, stretching, wrapping, and hanging over everything. Old peddles littered the floor, their brown and dead husks rustling under pointed black and white shoes. The roses that still remained, in bloom, were guarded by large and thick green and yellow thorns that covered everything around the neglected overlook. The taller of the two cousins let out an impressed whistled as he put his hands on his hips, his club dangling around his wrist from a leather strap. "You's sure can see a way from here, eh?" They both stepped onto the cracked patio, rose peddles and bird feathers shuffling under trod.

Half a century ago, Levinson Manor had been the jewel of Newport Rhode Island. Legend said that Mr. Levinson had gotten the idea while touring the 1883 World's Fair in Chicago with his family. They said that their daughter Cora had seen a mockup model at a pavilion and became transfixed till she drew everyone to her. The young tweeny had turned and told her family that was where she wanted to live. Her mother scoffed, telling her that she couldn't live there, that the whole concept of this 'mansion of the future' was hogwash impossible. But then, suddenly, her husband asked his wife why it was impossible. The red-haired southern belle only pointed to the model and blueprints with mouth agape as if the concept art and diorama was proof enough. Yet, the man only took his little girl's hand and placed a hand on his son's shoulder, gathering both of them around him. With serious look, the man told his children that 'nothing' was impossible, giving his exasperated red head a wink of positivity.

There was something prophetic about the house that the girl couldn't put her finger on, yet the images of it haunted her. It was something that both father and daughter believed in, a shared dream, vision, that if they built this impossible house that something would come of it, some destiny undreamt but as certain as the Evening Star. Through the years of its construction, the trial and error of making a concept, a pipe dream at the World's Fair, a reality, there came a great growth. When Mr. Levinson was bogged down by business, and Martha unwilling to help, the financing and wherewithal went over to Harold Levinson, who by father's test and sister's desire for this fairy palace, threw him into the fire of the business world. Soon enough, the passion, the love of the craft of father and son's trade brought the dream of Levinson Manor ever closer under the captaining of Harold and determination of Cora. Yet, Martha resisted still, thinking the whole exercise a flight of fancy of a girl that was ruled and disciplined as one of the royalties of Europe, and, as such, was treated by everyone as if she truly was. But when the combined efforts of Harold and Cora willed the great manor house to take shape, and much attention and publicity began coming their family's way for it. That was when the Southern Belle, the class of New Orleans, took a sudden and major interest in the project, finishing it all herself.

And it was by no means a fool's dream, or an explosion of insanity, that all of the assured knowledge of fate and doom that came with the construction of the great manor house was realized. Fore it was upon this very spot, on the night of the grandest of grand balls ever thrown in the history of Newport, that Cora Levinson decided that her heart, her soul, which was fought over by Dukes and Millionaires, would be given to a lowly Viscount. The oddest of sophisticated young men whose gallant crusade became their shared dream. And it was here, on this balcony, that fate exacted a great doom over many a soul yet to be born on that hallow eve when an everlasting and true love was found.

It had been many years since that gilded and crystal night. This palace of dream and prophecy, found by chance in an obscure room in a White City stalked by a monster and the very phantom of the future, now lay forgotten in the weeded and lost echoes of time. Vines and ivy wrapped columns, climbed the ruined walls and great gate of what was once a fantasy that united a family with a belief in the impossible. Tall windows lay brittle and broken in places, brown rust lay over chipped whitewashed stone, gilded plating was now green from sea salt calcification and neglect. Dust clouds were caught in the sunlight through the stained windows, choking the air in the rotting halls lined with threadbare carpet and soot covered marble floors. Statues of Grecian and Celtic mythology crumbled in dark cobwebbed corners, stone eyes looking out toward the endless sea without sight of a new tomorrow.

"This place musta been something, huh?" The tall man asked his squint of a cousin.

"Yeah … kinda makes me sad, you know?" Sid replied with a sigh.

"Whadya mean?" he asked with unguarded familial sincerity.

The young pencil pusher pulled off his glasses wiping dust from them on his yellow shirt. "I just mean, you think of all the parties, the dressed-up dolls and dames, right? The stuff both yous and my Ma used to read about, just the sheer beauty that used to be in this place, the art, the girls, the dresses … right? Now, since the "Crash", where are they? Ya'see what I mean? I don't particularly feel bad for all those rich fuckas … but ya'know … it's still sad in a ways, kinda like all those good times are trapped in old newspapers, and they ain't ever come back again … I don't know … just makes me kinda blue." He shrugged, looking around at the ruined balcony.

Suddenly, for just a moment, the salty wind picked up, blowing their hats nearly from their heads. They both took ahold of their headwear as the house began to rattle, giving a sigh that sounded almost mournful. A sentient melancholy expression for all that was and never will be again. But then, after a long beat, the wind died down and there was nothing but silence. The deepness of the catacomb like stillness came on like a hazy miasma that was leaking forth from somewhere deep within the old manor. Both cousins looked at one another with wide eyes as if something larger than themselves had heard their conversation and chimed in. But after a pause of superstitious nerves, the spell was broken by the cry of gulls upon the horizon.

With a shuttered breath the man turned and slapped the smaller across the shoulder with his hat. "Shut'aup …" he sighed, going back to the put-upon guardian with a rough placing on of his fedora. "Let's get back to work, huh …" he motioned Sid back to where they came from, even giving the brown suited gangster a shove in the back to make him go faster. But that didn't mean that he didn't give a flinched look back at a spot on the balcony.

There, he could almost make out two silhouettes, arm and arm, looking out to the horizon, echoes of some great emotional and foretold resonance that seeped into the very foundation of the manor house.

When they walked from the balcony back into the main ballroom their footfalls echoed sharply and loudly, being stretched far, too far, till they grew faintly as if disappearing in a great chasm. The loud footsteps dissipating made them feel dwarfed; ant like, in their insignificance compared to the sheer titanic scale of the room they walked through.

The towering and high vaulted ceilings of the grand ballroom was a complex dome of plate glass with gilded supports in which sunlight shinned in crafted patterns in certain times of the day. Far below was a hundred yards, a full football's field, of a marble dance floor. During it's prime, at the apex of its extravagance in the days of Queen Victoria and the Gilded Age of American wealth and commerce. The long and opulent floor shimmered and glowed in the army of crystal chandeliers that hung over it, while at its center was a vast and encompassing astrolabe of crystal, silver, and gold. It was a true masterpiece of craftsmanship that absorbed and reflected all the light of the many chandeliers around it, throwing and spinning a show of lights that coincided with many a musical number of classical waltzes. In its time, it might have been an eighth wonder of the world, something that no sudden poverty or unhappy marriage would ever sully in memory of those who had seen it. Even the eldest of Martha and Mr. Levinson's granddaughters still dreamt of the majesty and wondered awe of another marvel from the 1883 World's Fair at work from when she was young.

But now, so many long decades later, there was entire swaths of marble missing from the dance floor. Tiles lay cracked, broken, or smashed from careening chandeliers that had fallen from age and neglect. Panes of broken brittle glass from the ten-story glass dome above lay shattered all around, shoe soles crunching their many shards that lay hidden within dust and grime. While those that remained intact were cracked and stained with salt, the gilded frames now rusted and greened. From high above there came the faint echoing of sea birds that now nested in the vaulted maintenance areas and chandelier hooks, their fluttered wings and song pilfering from the unseen belfries. While unmolested sunlight now shown through onto the decayed ruins like spotlights that shined unceasingly on clouds of dust and soot that lingered over every part of the fallen fairy palace of Cora Levinson's dreams.

But the most awe-inspiring spectacle to this macabre rotted out modern marvel remained at the very dead center of the gigantic ballroom. The two cousins joined a group of five other comrades in similar suit and tie uniform as they gathered around a tremendous black hole of darkness. Within they all looked down to see the great crystal and silver Astrolabe broken and fallen. The sheer weight and height of the massive piece of modern art had been so great that when it fell it had caved in a large part of the marble dance floor. From the edge of the gigantic crater, the broken and crippled remains of the World's Fair device lay corpse like in a black void of shadowy darkness in the obliterated basement levels of the manor. The mighty astrolabe had found its final resting place pushed up against the cracking and crumbling foundations within sea caves below.

The collection of gangsters had never seen anything like it before. Not just the exceeding neglect of such a richly decadent manor, but the strange and intense emotions that seemed to surround the house. These were not men that botched at breaking and entering, of taking what they wanted. They had all worked their way up to this point, rent collection, protection racketeering, and extortion was a Tuesday afternoon for these dapper thugs. But, yet, there was an unceasing feeling of unrest, of mental disquiet, within themselves as they walked through the large manor by the sea. There was something about it, a kind of magic that one could not so wholly put a finger on. Yet, for a trespasser, one could simply say that the heavy atmosphere filled with melancholy, ponderous silence, and the deepest shadows made an unwelcome guest feel that they truly did not belong.

There were no words spoken from the group of suited men that all looked around at one another. They could speak if they wanted … but chose not to. It was a conscientious understanding by all that wandered the whitewashed ruin. Whether they'd admit it or not, they felt that there was something here, watching as a guard dog that keeps a warry eye over an intruder that has yet to break the perimeter. The salty winds of the sea echoing with odd wails and sighs through the cracked and broken windows of the crystal domed room was like the silent growling warnings as they approached the guarded line of some unknown and unseen sacred seal. Other times, somewhere in the religiosity of the sacred silence, they could still hear the sound of glasses clinking, the sea breeze's hum resemble a tremble of stray strings of a Johan Strauss music piece. They found in the tricks of the filtering sunlight nimble and elegantly flowing shadows of a dancing teenage girl in large silk dress which navigated past shattered and cobweb draped reflecting chandeliers. They felt that they weren't alone but were unsure what it was that remained in the bones of this desolate temple to a world of tomorrow. Yet, more unsettling was not what was in the house, but what haunted their own subconscious which manifested in this hollow canvas of dust, grime, and memories of an age undreamed.

The feelings that seemed intrinsic to the heavy, gasping, atmosphere of the abandoned manor house did not faulter, but only grew stronger when the two cousins left the ballroom. Here, the light that seemed so plentiful in the vast glass dome was cut by the third, remaining a barely tolerable dimness. They found themselves in congested corridors of darkness, the many windows that lined the walls had been shuttered. The air was stale and moldy, the halls narrow and long, seeming meandering at times. The carpets were dusty with filth and neglect, eaten by age. While still not alone, encountering other pairs of querying chums, they all seemed on edge, angry even. Unlike the grand ballroom, those grunts that had been checking the manor proper did not hold the ponderous ruin with any sort of awe. It seemed a tangled labyrinth of long corridors that fed into large open echoing rooms of marble, gilded ceilings, and tile.

There were also ill-feelings starting to form amongst some of the search parties. Fore in these rooms and halls were random, forgotten, sundries. They were statues and paintings, art painstakingly pursued and brought back to America from many European auctions. Ancient, beautifully crafted, they seemed life like in the dimness of the darkened halls of the abandoned manor house. It was a regular occurrence to hear a startle, a catch of breath, or an angry cuss word being lopped at a statue of Venus that had no arms, but a half-corroded face that looks out from a dark webbed corner of an unlit hallway. Or a portrait of a Spanish painter from the Regency Era that seems to be half lit in a dark lobby, watching every step from the shadows with realistically painted eyes. Thus, it was, that these terrible feelings of fright, of heavy, dusty, air weighing on their body and mind brought out a mighty rage from the gangsters when one party ran into another. The ability to put all this discomfort and nervous anger into a blowout with someone who could receive all those feelings seemed the only way to keep sanity. They grabbed each other's jackets, shoved one another, cursed and spat in Italian, English, or both. Then, both combatants would move away, blaming one another for these emotions that they didn't want to voice.

Eventually, both cousins stood in the lobby near the front entrance. Both double doors, taken from an Austrian Abbey near Vienna during a European study abroad by Martha and Cora Levinson, were left open. Yet, no sunlight seemed to beam through. The entire manor seemed to be shut away, buttoned up, and empty. It wasn't just physically, there was a hollowness that seemed to go right down to the roots of the spirit of the place. The long hallways, the large open rooms with thunderous echoing footfalls, gilded balconies that looked over empty chambers filled with black and white tile and smashed chandeliers run aground. The silence was pervasive, thunderous, and, at times, a true existential threat to one's own mind. It came to some that perhaps there was something worse than ghosts that infested these winding maze-like halls … and that was nothing. There was nothing here, there was nothing that remained of what it used to be. This place was filled with all sorts of valuables and priceless sundries. Yet, the atmosphere, the paranoia of the home, spoke wordlessly in the half-a-dozen times that they had passed one of the guys picking up some dusty artifact of crystal or silver, look as if they'd pocket it. But, oddly, tellingly, they'd instead put it right back, glaring and shaking their heads.

None of the boys wanted a piece of whatever this place was selling.

They climbed flights of a large three-way grand staircase that split like a trident after the second landing. They once more crossed over a dusty brass and iron railing of the overlook gallery to the main entrance. However, while they were sure that it might be a great view, instead the large of the two cousins broke out his lighter. A large draping tapestry of a velvet stage curtain tarp seemed to be hung in front of the railing, causing the corridor to be pitch black. In the distance they could hear guys opening, slamming, and kicking open doors down two of the other corridors. As of yet no one seemed to know where their 'Wolf's Head' was, or if they were even here. The thugs resented that they were doing all the heavy lifting around here, when the 'Old Crone' and 'Pretty Boy' had muscle of their own to be doing this. And while they were promised that whatever loot they found would be theirs for the keeping, thirty minutes in this place had changed their minds about that bonus entirely.

**HHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMPPPPPPHHH!**

There it was again.

Everything in the manor shook as a violent tremor rattled sundry, table, and man within. It was accompanied by a horrible and primal roaring, like some terrible mythical beast had a lair within the sea cave foundations underneath the house. The narrow halls funneled the roar, and the large marble and hollow rooms magnified it till it became inescapable. It seemed to each man in that time that whatever horrible scaled reptile that was screaming was lying right in front of them. At the apex of the noise and violence there were loud smashing booms of falling chandeliers and rattling crystals of those starting to give way. Everyone grabbed a hold of something for balance or to put their fear in grip. Then, after a long pause, there was nothing again. The silence and emptiness flowed like a river through the carved marble pathways into the gilded reservoirs of large cavernous rooms.

"Alright, ya mooks, get back to lookin, sooner we find this son of a bitch, the sooner we can get the hell outta here, capiche?!"

After a long moment, with a shake of heads, a scratch of the inner ear, the thugs went back to their manhunt. Walking again, Sid wondered why none of them hadn't gone down to the basements to check to see what was making that noise. He figured that if he was hiding somewhere in this unnerving place, he'd get underground as well. But then, wiping sweat from his brow from the fear, maybe they should check the upper rooms first before going down into the deeper darkness. Something told him that would probably be better, maybe not smarter. But, hey, like they were always telling the shrimp …

They ain't paying him to think.

It seemed that they weren't the only one's pondering these things as they came across a party of their own guys who had stopped at a forked corridor. They had two places they could go, left or right. And yet, they seemed to be biding their time, checking broom closets … and under tables. To be fair, neither of the cousins could really blame them. They saw that both corridors were equally pitch black. When they came across the other boys, everyone gave a startle, either at the other two thugs sudden arrival, or, in their case, they were startled by the startle.

"Yo, fuck ya Ma, Tony!" a short matchstick of an Italian immigrant shouted, pulling his hat brim down in annoyance.

"Ah, stow it, big shot … yous ladies done powdering ya noses ova'here?" Tony asked, chuckling with a shit-eating grin, ribbing his cousin Sid with a 'getta look as these guys' satisfaction.

"Hey, asshole, ya wanna pick a hallway, be my guest. If you ain't no chicken." Another thug in a slick and trimmed suit side stepped him. He was a smooth customer, good at talking and making others do the walking. He'd be good management someday, which was why he wasn't going to last long out here.

"Chicken …?" Tony blew a raspberry, tapping Sid on the chest with his knuckles. "Look at this fuckin guy, Sid. I bet he ain't never eatin no chicken an entire day in his life, eh? Am I right …?" He waved him off.

"I ain't eatin no chicken, me, ain't never eatin no chicken? Can you believe this guy, huh?" The smooth talker scoffed in insult at the prospect, turning to his other party members as if for validation of the ridiculous statement.

"It ain't no chicken, I'm sure your ma told you it was chicken … I bet you ain't seen no chicken since yous was on the boat from the old country!"

"Well, I tell you whateva it was, it tasted a lot like your sister's pussy … If you know what I'm sayin?!"

"Yeah, why don't yous come over here and say that to my face!"

"Hey, hey!"

"Fuck you!"

"Disgracia!"

"Fellas, fellas, fellas! Cool out, hold it, hold it, COOL IT!"

They were suddenly broken up, pushed apart by a figure that stepped in from another hallway. Both parties were mumbling insults and threats, shrugging to restraighten sports jackets. The figure in the center had both men by the lapels of their sharp suits, holding them in check.

"What is the problem, Paisanos?" he asked.

"This, Pagliacci lookin mutha'fuka, said that I ain't eatin no chicken!" He shouted, jabbing an accusatory finger like a switchblade across the scuffling factions.

"You never eaten chicken?" the figure asked in confusion.

"That's what he fuckin said!" The Smooth Talker shouted. The figure turned to Tony.

"No chicken …" the other gangster confirmed with a 'what can ya say about it?' kinda shrug.

"Well, have you eaten chicken?" he asked.

"Of course, I've eatin fuckin chicken, who hasn't, who hasn't?!" He cried out as if defending a family member's honor.

The mediating figure just held his hand up. "Alright, alright, pal …" he nodded that he caught his meaning.

"He said that he tongues fucks my kid sister."

"Did you …"

"Yeah."

"No, but did you …"

"Of course not, I've fucking known the guy for like two weeks, I mean he lives in Brooklyn, ya know … I don't get down there that much, and not to eat pussy, you go up to Harlem for that shit, Puerto Rican girls, yous know what I'm saying?!"

"Alright, alright … so you've eaten chicken."

"Fuck, I'll eat all the chickens!"

"And he's never eaten out your kid sister?"

"Nah, I guess not."

"Alright, so what are we doing out here, boys?"

Slowly the figure released the two men with a friendly shove that got some chuckles from the onlookers. There was a release of tempers and after a long beat amenability was found to their presence. Then, with a single jester from their impromptu leader the two thugs even shook hands. Both men even went so far as offering one another a bought chicken dinner when it was all over, then, they'd go out on the town to some dives out in Spanish Harlem to look up some 'Rosa's" if they all caught the smooth talker's meaning.

"Well, well done, boys … happy hunting." The figure patted both men on the shoulders.

Then, with a nod, the figure walked down one of the hallways, even receiving a few commending pats and drums on the shoulder by a few of the thugs in admiration for his voice of reason. For a long time, they all seemed to clear the awkward air, speaking about how the house was doing strange things to their psyche. They had a chuckle over the idea that they were fighting over if someone had ever eaten a chicken. There was a toast of flasks for the one person that was keeping a level head in this strange expedition through the ruin of this twisted and idealistic Tomorrowland that never came.

"Yeah, someone is stepping up, you know …"

"At least someone is, got us runnin around like we ain't got no damn sense, you know?"

"Yeah, well, I guess someone has some around here, right …?"

"…"

"…"

"Whoah, whoah, wait, wait, wait one damn minute here …"

"…"

"…"

"WHO THE FUCK WAS THAT GUY?!"

A party of four confused and startled thugs swaggered down the same hallway that their mediator had disappeared. For a long stretch of tense stalking the path was pitch dark, traveling by flickered flame of a lighter down the twisting and curving corridors that seemed empty but for a few broom closets and servant access points. Eventually, with a sharp turn, they were blinded by the sudden appearance of the mid-day sun that was shining directly through unshuttered windows that lined both sides of a hallway. Clouds of dust particles lingered thickly, solidifying the light that crisscrossed the tall hallway. The thick beams fell over a threadbare carpet on which there were strange color patters made by sunlit stained-glass designs on the windows.

In a matter of moments, they went from congested and narrow halls in which no light could pierce to a blinding trip down an overly lit wing of the manor. They saw that the corridor emptied into a large spacious room of tile and chandelier, as usual. But this time the design was completely different. The tiling was gold trimmed; the roof was domed with painted mural of clouds on a sky of twilight. All around them were marble columns in Grecian design. While in the center was a round dining table and writing desk pushed up to the windows that looked out over the ocean horizon. The men paused at the grandeur and artisanship of this sitting room that seemed right out of some fairy tale princess's enchanted castle. The light of day through tall windows gave the white tiles and columns an ethereal glow, even in their ruin.

While they basked a moment in the surreal and enchanting room, they began to notice that there was something amiss. The table had been recently used, cans of beans and a mason jars filled with peaches and strawberries lay empty. Also, and probably more importantly, surrounded by Hamburger wrappers, was the unscrolled original leather-bound blueprints to the entirety of Levinson Manor. They knew them to be real fore they were signed by both Harold and Cora Levinson. In the large and ornate fireplace, they also noticed old cooking pots from the kitchen sitting above a former cook fire that was attended by a drawn chair. It seemed that someone had been squatting in the manor for at least a week, checking off wings of the house, obviously looking for something. It spoke to either a strong man or a mad one to stay in this place for a couple of hours much less a week.

**HHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMPPPPPPHHH!**

They all grabbed the rickety old table, or even a column, as the blasting sound of the dragon's roar seemed to be amplified by the spacious chamber and domed marble roof. Covering their ears with one hand, there was a collected flinch at the sharp noises of crystals on the old chandelier above clinking against one another in the violent tremor causing a snow like fall of filth and soot. Being in the room with its romantic design and fairy like adornments made one feel that it was almost possible that some beast of terrifying fantasy was at the roots of this ever twisting, ever changing, house of the future that was long abandoned. When the last aftershocks ceased and the overpowering quiet of the ruin resettled, they heard the sudden drop and clatter of something nearby. Then, with a catch of breath, they heard the tinkling mechanical noise of what sounded like a music box playing a disjointed version of "Greensleeves" in the distance.

Looking around, they finally spotted that there was an actual balcony above the sitting room. Beyond the gilded iron railing was two whitewashed cherry oak and glass French doors that were left wide open. From inside the room they heard feet shuffling, someone picking up the music box and closing with an audible snap. Half the party looked like they were about to spring, when Tony held them off. Instead, the man pointed to a corridor to the right that, by logic, would lead to the room with the balcony. Quietly, trying to muffle their hollow echoing footfalls, they clacked stealthily down the hallway, finding that it led to a winding staircase of a tower. When they reached the ascent of the red carpeted stone stairs with gold trim, they found a landing that led to a large double doorway of heavy oak that were left open. The entire party of thugs walked in together, with room to spare.

The single tower room turned out to be a large and opulent bedchamber fit for a fairy princess. The walls were a pure white with gilded rose vine embroidery in twin stripes two inches from the ceiling and two inches from the floor. The gold and white also matched the drapery made of a heavy and regal velvet. The floors were tiled and trimmed in blacks. The bedroom itself seemed the size of the entirety of the apartments that all the gangsters had grown up in. Of who's room it had belonged too was reflected in the items and décor within.

Pushed up against the wall were dozens, upon dozens, of the finest, most like life, porcelain dollies that anyone had ever seen. They had painted eyes of blue, green, and purple, wearing the finest dresses of every era of historical fashion. And every single one of them was caked in dust and filth, their ringlets snared by cobwebs. Layers of soot covered different doll houses; playsets so finely crafted that they looked like real homes. Some of the men could recognize the Levinson's former Fifth Avenue mansion "San Sochi" from their childhoods. The exact replica was collecting dust while sitting on a rotting play table. There were toy chests that were filled with stuffed animals and other dollies that were of a less prestigious nature and yet more top of the line than most other little girls would see in their lifetime. There was a clock work toy carousel and a wind-up Ferris Wheel that chimed a song when activated.

They began to realize that the entire room was filled with toys and childish amusements. One might have guested that a room such as this would belong to a small or young girl of exceeding wealth. But pushed in corner were six large wardrobes to contradict that impression. Even stronger an inconsistency was a wireframed mannequin that was used to design and display a wedding dress. While on the walls by the window were the 1880s equivalent of the most top of the line collegian level textbooks on many subjects of European History, art, and aristocratic etiquette. It seemed strange and out of place to think that this room filled with expensive toys and dollies long played with belonged to a grown woman with cases, chests, and large wardrobes filled with exquisite clothing of silk, lace, and satin.

It spoke to a Countess far away who might not have been so wholly to the maturity that a Viscountess was thought to have upon her wedding day.

"Fellas …"

They were broken from their stupor of the exquisite bedchamber to find a tall figure standing by a large king-sized canopy bed of pearl white silk. From his voice they clearly knew him to be their mediator from minutes earlier. But they frowned in confusion at who they were looking at. It was a kid, a teenage kid. He had a sun-tanned complexion a few shades lighter than olive, clearly being someone who had spent a long time in hot and arid regions. He had a grown-out mane of perfectly tussled raven curls and cerulean eyes that seemed to stand out in the room of white and gold. They took him to be a threadbare and ragged wayfarer. His cloth was poor, his rugged unkemptness made him seem way worn and world weary. He wore a peacoat of beaten mahogany leather, the collar done up in the back. A homemade navy-blue cotton aviator's scarf was looped and wrapped around his neck. His trousers were made of old denim that tucked into tall fascistic police motorcycle boots of old supple leather that was starting to give way at the seams. On his forehead there lay a pair of goggles that pushed back his perfect raven locks.

His age was hard to pinpoint beyond some vague range of mid to late teenage years, all of it due to the hardened look in his deeply haunted eyes. He was, and should've been, an incredibly handsome youth, any young girl or woman's dream. But upon such a fair face was marred sorrow that was inescapable, in perpetual mourning of some grave hurt that happened in the near past. It was clear that this youth, whoever he might have been, had seen many a terrible and impossible thing in his too young life that he would never be able to forget as long as he lived.

One of those things seemed fairly clear as his handsome face was burdened further by a fairly brutal facial wound. They were two thin, talon like, deep gashes that trailed cleanly across his right eye. They were not fresh, yet not old either, still shining glossy in the light. The youth's right eye was bloodshot from what appeared to be some sort of inky liquid that seeped sporadically in foul droplets. The scar looked ugly and painful, and without a doubt whoever gave it was someone, or something, that no ordinary man should face alone. Yet, this youth, whoever he was, had done so and hadn't just lived to never tell the tale to a soul … but had won. This alone, along with accompanying hard eyes and gruesome scars had made the youth seem intimidating, elemental in his stare that betrayed the nonchalant voice that spoke with no accent to the gangster's hearing. To them he seemed just another All-American kid that had just got here from Pennsylvania or Ohio.

They watched him as he was folding a beautiful Worth wedding dress made of white silk and ribbons that had clearly been taken off the wire frame display. After a long moment of watching the young man put the carefully folded regal wedding gown in a duffle quilted sack made of rags that seemed to have been stitched by his own hands while sitting by a cookfire in the fairy princess sitting room. "Stop right there, asshole!" Tony shouted at the youth when their stupor broke eventually.

"Not going anywhere, Pal …" The kid rolled his eyes, holding his fingerless gauntlet hands up to show he was unarmed. The four gangsters descended quickly, surrounding him.

"Who the hell are you?!" Tony asked reaching for the youth's lapel.

The sound of a lightning flash hand slapping away the aggressive gangster's smacked loudly. "Who the hell are you?" The kid countered with an agonizing frown from his wounded brow as the gangster pulled his hand back with shuttered pain, feeling as if the quick reflexed rebuff was performed by a hand that was made of solid granite.

"Uh, that's Tony, he's my cousin …"

"Shut the fuck up, Sid!"

There was a tense pause before the youth lightened. "Well, in that case …" There was an easy-going nature to the young man who immediately stepped forward. "Hey, Tony, how's it going?" When the thug turned back, he found his hand being shaken. Soon enough, the youth, in turn, began shaking all of the other thug's hands with casual introduction. The Sicilian looked disgusted as they all began introducing themselves with cordial casualness, shaking hands with easy going disarmament.

"Hold up, hold on, KNOCK IT OFF!" Tony shouted at the rest of the guys who seemed unguarded. He took a long good look at the scarred youth with suspicion. "Who the hell do you think yous is?" He asked in offense at the kid's seeming natural ability to take over a situation.

"I deem someone just like you … just trying to do a job and not get hassled for it." He answered with an easy tailored confidence that Tony deemed the kid was born with. "I mean, am I in Rhode Island or Hell's Kitchen, right boys?" He asked around. Tony was disturbed by the sudden positive answers from the group.

"Fucking, Micks … always hassling whenever we wanna go get some of that whiskey."

"Goddamn potato peelers."

"Fuckin Irish cops … don't respect nothin, right Tony?" Sid shook his head.

"The fuck yous talking about, Squint?! Ya never crossed no I, nor dotted a Q in your life?" Tony snapped at his cousin again. The youth noticed it for the second time, but only lightened his look.

"Come on, Tony, we ain't no cops …"

"Yeah, cut the kid a break, eh?"

"Alright, alright, alright …" The designated leader repeated rubbing his temples. "ALRIGHT, alright, alright, shut up, ya clowns!" he hollered at his group that were starting to complain of his heavy handedness. Then, he frowned at all of them in disgust. "Did any of yous fuckin geniuses eva think, once, that this is the Limey son of a bitch we're lookin for, huh?" He slapped the mustached fourth member of the group who had a matchstick between his teeth in the back of the head. Suddenly, they all grew silent and turned suspicious looks toward the magnetic youth that seemed a force of nature. But the kid only looked confused.

"Well … who are you looking for?" He asked with a shrug.

"Feh, wouldn't you like to know?" Tony countered. But then there was a long pause as everyone began to look confused.

"Yeah, you know, that would help …" the kid shrugged again.

"I think that'll help, Tony …" The smooth talker scratched his jaw.

"Ya think so, asshole?!" The man snipped under his breath. Then, after his party member responded with thrown out raised arms that said he actually wasn't sure himself, he rounded on the kid. "Alright, what's your birthday?" he asked. There was a long pause as everyone seemed pleased by the question turning judgmental looks toward the scarred wanderer in anticipation.

"Uh …" He frowned in puzzlement. "March 12th …" He shook his head, not sure why he was just asked the question.

There were a few nods from the group, someone voicing that it was also his grandmother's birthday. Then, everyone turned to Tony to see what came next. That was when the man found a shit eating grin as if that one tidbit of detail was some Holmesian clue to the solving a true mystery that none of the dunderheads had the brains for. He held up one finger to quiet everyone.

"What's _his_ birthday?" He asked the kid.

Everyone voiced their support for their leader while turning back to the youth with aggressive cheerleading … at first. But, then, slowly, after a moment, they quieted and turned back in puzzled squints to an expecting Sicilian with a smug look.

"His birthday?"

"Yeah, his birthday …"

"I told you, March 12th."

"No, what's _his_ birthday?"

"Tony, he just said March …"

"I ain't talking to yous!"

"Wait, you're talking to me?"

"Of course, asshole!"

"I just told you, March 12th …"

"Yeah, I don't get it, Tony …?"

"Shut up! No, what's the guy's birthday!"

"What guy?"

"The guy, the fucking … you know?"

"No, not really …"

"The Limey fuck!"

"That's an entire Empire of people, Pal."

"No, goddamn it, the fucking guy, the guy we're looking for!"

"I don't get it, Tony … yous want the kid to tell you that guy's birthday?"

"Well, look who just caught up?!"

"Wait, you want me to tell you the birthday of the guy you're looking for?"

"YES!"

"…"

"…"

"How the _hell_ am I supposed to know?!"

"Eeehhh, ya know, Tony, I think I'm with the kid on this one."

"Yeah, Yeah, how is the kid supposed to know that?"

The olive tanned face of the Sicilian with pencil mustache stared at the rugged youth for a very long time. His smug face slowly disappeared, his chewing of a wad of Bazooka bubble gum suddenly got faster, his face going blank in thought, as if the rapid chomping of his molars was the cranking wheel to a suddenly empty mind. Somewhere along the line he lost track of the narrative, or possibly the point. He only crossed his arms, blinking. Meanwhile, everyone slowly turned from suspicious confusion of the young man before them toward the broad-shouldered criminal with frowns. Sid took his hat off, scratching his balding scalp.

Eventually, the youth, gave a stilted shake of his head slowly with an anticipating face for something to come of the whole thing. "So …" The kid drew out, motioning for the Sicilian to make a point.

"Huh …" Was the big man's response, defensively chewing on his gum, widening his stance with arms crossed. The awkward silence lasted another stretch that one might have thought too long.

"You know …" The kid offered. "You should probably save those curve balls for when you're deeper in the count there, chief." He nodded, awkwardly patting his confused adversary on the shoulder. There was a silence that was filled with nods of agreement or tilting heads that considered the advice with accepting expressions. The smooth talker tapped the bigger man's chest with the back of his hand in agreement while Sid patted his cousin on the shoulder.

"Fuck off me …!" He snapped at the other two thugs who quickly gave him space.

"Well …" the youth drew out stuffing the last of the priceless, one of a kind, wedding gown into the duffle. "I hope you find the guy you're looking for ... whoever he is." He seemed genuine, friendly even as he began stringing the quilted duffle closed with a teenage girl's faded satin hair ribbons that he had found in one of the many wardrobes.

"Yeah, well, if yous ain't him, then what the hell ya doin here?" The matchstick man motioned to the kid with wood piece in between his teeth.

"Me?" He asked.

"Yeah, yous …" Tony reentered the conversation, burnt by being humiliated.

They watched the Kid loop the strap of the cloth bag across his chest. "Excavating …" He said distractedly slinging the duffle tightly behind him so that the soft quilted roll was pressed tightly against the small of his leather clad back.

"Why yous some sort of holy man?"

"Excavating, shithead, not exorcisms …"

"Wha, yous a dictionary now, asshole?! The fucking Kid knows what I mean!"

"Yeah, yeah … ya dumb Guinea."

"So, you're a thief?" Sid asked over Tony and the smooth talker who were back to smacking one another's arms.

That seemed to catch youth's attention. There was something angry in detest at what he saw as an accusation. "I'm no goddamn thief!" There was something dark in the young man's voice that stilled the room of any internal strife. They cringed at a droplet of some black foul liquid that ran down the length of his gash and onto his cheek that he wiped off. It seemed that whatever the name had in association to himself, he did not like it being used by his presence in this abandoned ruin, and surely in this room of all places. There was something stricken, insecure, and deeply tormented about the young man that had much to do with some personal honor in relation to whoever was once the fairy princess who this room, the manor itself, had been built for.

But he quickly squashed whatever melancholy plagued his heart when he saw the fang like grins that some of the others gave to one another. He didn't think them all that intelligent enough to play coy, instead he knew it to be what he was used to. The time-honored tradition of male bonding through exploiting insecurities.

"Yous look like you're thieving to me, unless yous found the man of your dreams and hard up for cash, little lady." Tony pointed out to a chorus of chuckles at the youth and the wedding dress's expense.

There was five ways to play the bitterness that welled deep in his soul. one kills, two cripples them for life, one hurts like hell, and the last moves chess pieces.

"What can I say boys, it goes with my eyes …" He took his hand off the bishop. When the other men saw him turn into the ribbing, their guard lightened even further. "No, look … I'm simply liberating these 'artifacts' from a dusty tomb so they can do a service where they're better suited." He explained. Then there was something brooding that cut a prolific image as he looked out the window. "It's not like the people who lived here are gonna come back for anything …" There was a heavy knowledge of something more in his voice, in his expression, a deeper sorrow than he reluctantly let on.

"Ehh, and how would you know that?" Tony looked suspicious, conflicted. He knew him not to be a thief, because, a thief would be lining his pockets with valuables, not sentimental items like an old, tattered, and forgotten wedding dress. Yet, the ragged and scarred wanderer didn't fit any ideas or images they had for what their query looked like.

The youth only glanced his near _glowing blue eyes_ at the men. "I make it my business to know." He said mysteriously, barely holding back some sorrow. He looked up to a painting of the Lady Shalott on her funeral barge being mourned over by Sir Lancelot on the wall above an ancient vanity.

"Alright, we'll let it go …" The head thug loosened his shoulders in a flex of mischievous confidence, convinced he still had the biggest brain in the room. "If ya answer me this question, kid." He pointed at the youth who was frowning at the painting in study, thumb and curled forefinger tugging on his chin.

"Shoot …" He acknowledged distractedly without looking. The man drew himself to full height, clubbing a fist into his meaty hand.

"You ever heard of _George Crawley_?" He asked smugly, chewing slowly again on his gum. The youth froze a moment, though none of them knew if it was out of fear or if he was lost in thought of the piece of art he was transfixed on.

"Yeah …" The kid replied easily reaching into his inner coat pocket. "The Adventurer? Who hasn't?" he was completely nonchalant, distracted even. But when he heard a mummer of quiet voices the boy turned. "Is that who you're hunting? George "The Comet" Crawley?" He snorted in disbelief and a shake of his head.

Something defensive awoke in the big Sicilian at the mocking tone in the kid's voice. "Maybe …" He shifted. "What do ya know about the slippery bastard?" He glared suspiciously with an interrogating nod of acknowledgement at the mysterious figure.

The youth went back to digging in his pocket. "British, vigilante, martial artist, gun and knife fighter. Fought the Ku Klux Klan and a Voodoo Sorcerer in New Orleans. The only person to ever escape from the 'Mission" at Saltillo Penitentiary down Mexico way. The Pinkertons in New York and the big ranch owners down in Mexico have an outstanding bounty on his head, along with just about everyone else it seems …" He listed off giving acknowledgement to the men around him at the end. "Nothing nobody else doesn't know." He replied casually.

"That it?" Tony asked suspiciously.

The youth snorted, clutching some silver item in hand. "Yeah …" he teased. "Other than he was here." He shrugged.

"What?!"

"When?!

"You're shitin me …!"

"Fellas!"

"YOU WAITED TILL NOW TO TELL US!"

"Hold it, hold it …!"

"WHERE IS THAT AUNT FUCKA?!"

"Guys, hold … whoah, wait, aunt what?"

**HHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMPPPPPPHHH!**

Suddenly the mobbing crowd of gangster who were all surrounding the youth talking, snarling, and shouting all at once were silenced by the thunderous rumble of the mysterious roar that was more powerful in the tower room of the crumbling manor. They were all jostled, desperately clinging to bed posts, trunks and wardrobes. Dolls fell from the displays, their brittle and cracked faces smashing on the tile floor. Large academic tomes slipped from their shelves slamming on the dusty floor with loud booms that threw dust and filth in large clouds high into the opulent bedchamber. Even Sid gave a frightened yelp as he went careening into a once carefree American Princess's nightstand, knocking a folding three framed picture display that clattered on top of him. Eventually, like always, there was a sudden, sullen, and empty silence that creeped back into the abandoned manor.

"Is someone gonna tell me what the fuck is going on around here?!" Tony shouted at his guys, but then focused on the youth who was dusting chandelier filth from his jacket.

"Search me …" The kid replied running a hand through his perfect mane of waving black curls. "And I don't want to know. I just wanna get what I came for and get out." He helped the smooth talker back to his feet, with a dusty pat to the thankful man's shoulder.

"Yeah?" the big Sicilian nearly barked. "Well, yous ain't going nowhere till ya tell us where that Limey **fuck** went!" He demanded.

The youth sighed, scratching his head. "I don't know, he was here when I got here, then up and left about three, maybe, four days ago …" He shrugged looking the large mobster right in the eye without flinching. In one statement all the energy and fire went out of the big man. Suddenly, violently, the criminal grabbed his hat and threw it across the room.

"FUCK!" He shouted in a rage. Meanwhile, the rest of the gangsters looked downcast at the news.

"You mean we came all this way for nothin?!" the matchstick man kicked a chest filled with stuffed animals causing a few weak squeaks from the force on the old toys.

"Did he say where he was going?" Sid asked, cradling the faded silver frame that had fallen on him.

"Boston, from what I heard, said his uncle has some cousins that own a couple of car dealerships down that way maybe." He spoke casually.

"Mama Mia …!" Tony cried in stressful playfulness rubbing his eyes with his palms. "The Boss's clients ain't gonna like this." He mourned.

"Yeah, well, fuck that old _**Pamuk**_ witch and her _Turkish_ pretty boy! Boston … the entire place is lousy with micks … it's like if Hell's Kitchen was an entire goddamn town! I'm tellin ya, right now, we ain't gotta shot if we go down there lookin to mix some shit up with 'The Comet'. Philly? Maybe, right? But ain't gonna be in no mick's backyard." The smooth talker lamented. "You know Crawley is tight with the potato peelers, even speaks their old "Garlic" language and shit too." He slapped his feathered hat against his knee in disgust.

The match man took the wood piece from his mouth. "'The Highwayman' slipped the trap again, why am I not surprised?" He shook his head. "It's like I'm always sayin …" He shoved the match back in between his teeth in disappointment with a scoff. Though, he never did reveal what it was he actually always said.

The youth whistled sympathetically at the monumental misfortune of the thugs. "Tough bit of luck there, boys …" He blew out a breath with a shake of his head.

He patted Tony on the shoulder in passing, holding tight to the silver item he pulled out of his inner pocket. It was hard to hide the clear anger just under the surface of men like them walking around, touching, so casually, the things in the room. They'd wave it off as a thief's claim, the selfish whims of a fellow criminal. But they had not guessed yet why their very presence in this room was all out blasphemy in the young man's heart.

"Stand back …" He called out to those who were near him.

There wasn't one of the defeated intruders that disobeyed the commanding voice. The youth turned, facing the painting of Lady Shalott and Sir Lancelot. They watched in interest as the youth held an item tightly in a fingerless gauntleted hand up. In his clutched hand looked to be a silvery fob watch with an intricate design of concentric circles and lines on the cover. The engraved symbol of "The Master's Wheel" embedded upon the black leather of his palm. Gripping the unopened watch tightly, he pressed the top winder of the clockwork instrument. After a short moment, he felt the gears and wheels click as they began to turn in his hand. From inside his fist the circles of "The Master's Wheel" began to slowly be filled with a liquid light that spilled through the engravings till the symbol of philosophical marshal discipline glowed a pure azure. Feeling a warm pulse gliding through the nerves of the youth's hand, he raised his fist.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Holy shit!"

Tony shot to his feet, while Sid crossed himself and back peddled. There, wreathed in blue light, were glowing markings on the back of the kid's hand. They were Adûnaic symbols of an ancient and mighty mariner civilization that had been long lost to time and knowledge. The four runes were placed in four small outer circles at the top, bottom, and both sides of a pair of concentric circles, one large and the other small. Inside the smallest circle held an ancient arrow with smaller runes inside which changed based on the direction. Wherever the boy moved his hand the arrow of blue light ticked back and forth searching for what only it was commanded to within the heart of one worthy to wield it.

"What the fuck is that?!" The smooth talker startled watching glowing blue runes in the shape of a compass glow on the back of the kid's hand.

The youth frowned. "A long story from long ago …" he replied softly in concentration. No one in the room was sure if he meant the origin of the item itself, or how it came to be in the possession of a small boy nine years past. Slowly the matchstick man walked up to the youth looking from the ticking compass arrow made of blue light to the gorgeous painting of Arthurian legend. Gently, he reached out to touch the blue glowing runes. Quickly, dismissively, his hand was slapped away by the youth that still was concentrating. The man made a pained noise than stepped back.

"I knew it …" The kid whispered under his breath when the arrow finally settled on a direction. When he looked up it was pointing directly at the painting.

They were unsure how the youth so casually removed his thumb from the dial, watching the blue glow that was so prominent now fading till it was as if it never happened. The silver device returning in look and feel to a fop watch. Without a thought, the youth return the item to his inner coat pocket. To them it was something rather, and quite, impossible, but from the look of the young man, one might have thought that he had just flicked on a flashlight and flicked it off again when he found what he was looking for. He did not flinch, nor even think that anything was amiss. It was as if, to him, the item, the relic of another place, another time in the prehistory to this age of the world, was such a natural item to have in his possession.

"How did you do that?" Tony asked, mouth still left slack jawed.

The youth pulled out a heavy Hope Chest from the foot of the silken and dusty king-sized bed. There was a grunted disinterest while in effort to push the chest under a priceless painting. When he was done the youth hopped up on the dusty old lid. "Nothing that would interest you …" The youth grunted as he began to dislodge the frame.

"I just might surprise you." The gangster baited in suspicion.

"No, probably wouldn't …" He grunted dismissively, feeling the full and heavy weight of the classical era painting.

There was a momentary look of offense in the gangster's eyes, before he conceded the outrage. The youth's answer spoke to a more robust knowledge and mistrust of black hearted rogues which it would seem that he had known too many. Still the man only nodded grudgingly, chewing his gum, still feeling somewhat slighted to be considered a 'run of the mill' type of villain to the kid, whoever he might be.

Sensing the clear dissatisfaction in the answer of whatever 'parlor trick' the kid had just pulled; the youth spoke out to the crowd watching in interest of what he was doing. "Look, boys …" He grunted, hugging the heavy old painting to his chest with effort. "I've been from one side of this world to the other, seen a lot of dark, strange, and wonderous things … sometimes all at the same time. Take my advice when I tell you, if you don't roll with the unexplained, it takes a swing at you …" He turned back to the mobsters. "And it doesn't miss." There was something darkly serious about his voice.

Suddenly, they seemed all drawn to his ugly facial slashes which glistened with a foul _ectoplasm_. It was then, as if by intuition, that they realized that whatever gave him that scar, it was something so ancient, so evil, that even the wounds it gave, physically or otherwise, left its foul and everlasting signature upon its enemies. It was then, in that clarity of haunted hardened eyes and terrifying scar that all questions of the how and why of the unexplained surrounding the mysterious figure were permanently stowed away.

Then, they startled when the youth, sensing the matter had been concluded, gave the Arthurian painting a casual toss. It landed on the silk bed with a loud puff that caused old rusted springs of an ancient feather mattress to break under the weight. When the youth leapt down with a clap of boot soles on tile, they all looked up with surprise and sudden interest. There, uncovered, was an old iron combination safe. The brass locking mechanism was greened, the combination dial with letters and numbers were faded, and a corroding rust had turned a once black iron door maroon and orange.

"What is it?" Sid asked, still cradling the folding picture frame.

"It's a safe, fuckhead …"

"Yeah, I know."

"Don't get fresh with me, squint, or I'll turn that parrot nose sideways, huh?"

"Alright, alright … just sayin."

"So, uh …" the smooth talker slowly backed away from the safe toward the youth who was suddenly looking through toy chests. "What's in the safe?" The youth paused what he was doing at the clear, baiting, ambiguousness in the casually uncasual tone. It was friendly, inquisitive, playful even, but there was a serpent's hiss behind it. The youth knew that whatever happens now, after a long trip from New York to Rhode Island, no one wanted it to count as a loss. And there were a few of the thugs suddenly thinking that whatever was inside might just make the whole thing worth it.

"What I came here for …" He said opaquely, going back to what he was looking for in the toy chests.

"Which is what exactly?" The Italian pressed with a winning grin and eyes like Judas at the garden.

The youth switched trunks. "The thing that Martha Levinson died for." His voice got strangely dark and brooding, stopping only a moment to push some heavy boulder of emotion off his heart, letting it tumble down his insides before settling deep and heavily in the pit of his soul. Then, he continued his search.

"Damn, Martha Levinson died?" Sid asked rhetorically, somewhat mournfully. Both he and the matchstick man crossed themselves like good Catholics, even the smooth talker did so out of instinct. But Tony only scoffed.

"What are ya, her grandson or somethin? Who gives a fuck about some rich old cunt?" He slapped his cousin on the back of his head.

The squint retrieved his hat. "Ah, come on, Tony. Remember Nana used to have that big scrap book of all them big to-do weddings back in the old days?" He put his hat on his head. "Remember she used to always tell us about Martha Levinson's wedding all the time, she waved at her or something …. Right?" He asked.

"Nah, it wasn't no Martha Levinson ya dope, it was her daughter, uh … Cora? Yeah, Cora Levinson … married some Limey prince or whateva. Her wedding dress got caught or somethin, and Granny helped her out, saved the dress from getting ripped, she'a told her that she'a savyed the weddin." He recalled, mocking the faceless beauty of their grandmother's memory with a flowery stereotypical Italian accent snatching his cousin by the nose and wiggling it roughly. The smaller of the two broke free, rubbing his nose grudgingly.

"Yeah, well, you remember it." He countered.

The man responded by blowing a raspberry. "Yeah, only, because, she told us that story twice a day. 'Oh, my darling Cora, what a Beautaful girl, lika angel, no?!'" He mocked with a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, but whateva happened to old lady Levinson anyway?" The matchstick thug asked.

"Didn't she disappear?" Sid asked.

"I thought she died when those Pinkerton assholes tried burning 'The Comet' outta San Sochi?"

"Nah, she disappeared long before the Dutchies went after Crawley. I think I heard she died in New Orleans."

"She did …"

They turned to the youth who had unearthed a dusty toy tea set. Cracked teacups rattled while the wanderer sifted through them, looking for one in particular. "It was about a month after the Stock Market crashed. She went to New Orleans to recover some priceless heirlooms to save her family. Ran into a Voodoo Shaman with powerful African Tribal relics and his congregation of evil Cultist Priests that were waiting for her …" He picked out the only teacup in the set that wasn't badly broken, cracked, or chipped.

He looked gravely at his fellows from where he crouched at the toy chest. "I think you can fill in the rest of it." He left it ominously, though they noticed that he rubbed his scar that turned red at the mention of the Hausa Shaman. As he passed the thugs there was a chill that ran up their spine. Suddenly, they had rather preferred to be told about what actually happened …

Fore, the ambiguity of the old Levinson woman's fate was much more frightening.

The chest creaked under the renewed weight of the figure that leapt up upon it. The rusted combination dial clicked inconsistently when the youth gritted his teeth, cursing under his breath, glaring hard as he put all of his strength in finally being able to turn the dial a full revolution clockwise. Then, with gritted teeth he began turning it in counter.

"Come on, damn you …" He grunted.

"So, there's some sort of treasure in there …?" The Smooth Talker approached the mysterious figure.

The youth growled in effort between clenched teeth. "Hopefully …" He grunted with strained effort. "Or the crazy old woman died for nothing." He sighed, finally grinding the rust out of the gears. "Along with dozens of Klansmen, Black Priests, and scores of others." He began turning the dial easier.

"Are you sure you want it, then?" The shrimp asked nervously.

The youth smirked knowingly. "Yeah, why's that?" He counter questioned, rotating the dial back and forth till it moved with relative ease.

The man with glasses looked at the kid as if it should be obvious. "I mean … if a Voodoo Sorcerer, or whateva, wants it, how do you know he ain't gonna come lookin, ya'know?" He pondered.

"Nah …" The smooth talker interrupted with a scoffed dismissal. "I heard stories bout that goon in New Orleans. Some fuckin psycho cracka, wore some kinda crazy scary mask … he ain't real." He waved off.

"Bullshit, he ain't real … a buddy of mine who works down at the docks in Staten Island told me he shot dice with some negroes that work on them refrigeration barges that ships shrimp up here from New Orleans. They told him that the masked shaman was real, that he used to sacrificed virgin girls both white and colored to his evil tree god … but they says 'The Comet' killed him."

"Fuck those crazy niggers, they just pulling goddamn monkey shines on ya bunch'a ignorant Guineas down in Staten Island. There ain't no way that George Crawley killed no evil Voodoo sorcerer."

"Why not? He escaped Saltillo, didn't he?"

"Yeah, I heard he killed twenty Mexican guards on his way out … and he even got a nun to run off with him."

"Now ya just suckin his knob like your made-up nun. He killed maybe five guards, and he ain't deflowering no holy sisters."

"What I heard was that he didn't kill anyone …" The youth now had the teacup against the safe. The rim was pressed against the door, while he pressed an ear to the bottom of the cup. Gently, he turned the dial listening for the locking mechanism and pins. "He choked a guard out, dragged him into his cell, took his keys, then sewed himself into a burial sack. Then, when the midnight burial detail planted him in the prison cemetery, he cut his way out and sought sanctuary at an abbey at the edge of the desert." He offered. They watched him give a dry spit. Though, they took the spitting as that of removing filth that seemed to cover everything in the house, they never guessed at the possibility that it might have come from the vivid memories of the taste and smell of smothering soil being dumped on a midnight grave in a desert.

There was a long pause as the rest of the gangsters mulled over his version.

"That's so fuckin stupid …"

"Yeah, yeah, yous tellin us that rather than escape once he got the keys, he waited to be buried alive? Who the fuck does that?"

"Someone who knew the guards would sound the alarm before he could find a way out of the "Mission", just maybe?"

"Whateva yous say, kid. I don't care how bad it might have been, it couldn't be worse than being buried alive.

The youth scoffed with a shake of his head. "Not much of a difference in that place." He commented after a pause in which blue eyes were taken by a momentary madness in what might have been flashes of the impenetrable blackness of the deepest and darkest cell of the oldest and most evil of haunted Asylums for the Criminally Insane. But when they all turned to him again, his face lightened immediately. "Or so I've heard …" he shrugged casually, going back to listening to the clicking of the lock pins through the cup base.

"Ya know what all yous problem is? Ya believe all that shit that his aunt writes about him in her fuckin girly magazine. Fighting fuckin Voodoo Shamans, gunfights with Pancho Villa's old Revolutionaries on the seashores of Mexico, a duel with Fu Manchu to avenge some old chinaman who taught him that tricky fightin bullshit they do …"

"Hey, hey, whataya doin, Tony, Whataya doin?! Ya nuts? Don't go around fuckin sayin that evil yella devil's name out loud!"

"Yeah, yeah, even the boss don't say 'The Demon Doctor's' real name!"

"Shuyat'up! See, this is what I'm fuckin sayin! Ya bunch of pansies read some Limey broad with class's panty rag and think that shit's real cause she's got some flowery fuckin title across the sea. Ain't no one can ever say if that 'Demon Doctor' or whateva is real, cause ain't no one's ever seen him before. And I sure as hell ain't pissin my drawers at some made up shit about George "The Comet" Crawley because some horny middle-aged British dame who writes young adult books for young girls misses the taste of her nephew's cock!"

"What now?!" The youth immediately craned his head back in interest that masked a momentary slip of outrage.

Tony just snorted at the kid, waving him off dismissively. "Can you believe this fuckin guy?" He tossed a thumb behind him at the kid as if he was an idiot. The other thugs agreed, even Sid, who was just as surprised to hear it.

"Yeah, everyone knows that …" The shrimp quickly said to scrub his transgression of being out the loop.

"Fuckin A … anyone who knows anything knows that Lady Edith Pelham writes all that shit about her nephew, because, he bends her over." The matchstick man rolled his eyes at the trivialness of having to go over established fact.

The kid looked shocked. "Like … actually, full on …" He stammered a second. "People are actually saying that?" He shook his head in disbelieve and offense.

"What ya live on a deserted island for four years?"

"Yeah, what are ya, deaf?"

"And … and people think that's real?"

"The fuck is wrong with this guy …?"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard that when they were in San Antonio, he had Edith Pelham so many times that she had to get her belly pumped ..."

The youth frowned, staring at the squint in puzzlement. "Why would she get her stomach pumped?" He asked in confusion.

"Cause, he … ya know, he fucked her so much …"

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with her stomach?"

"What da'ya mean, what da'ya mean?"

"When you have sex … you know it doesn't go into her stomach, right?"

"Oh, yeah? well … were do babies come from then, huh?"

"The uterus …"

"…"

"…"

"Yo, What the fuck is a uterus?"

"…"

"I mean, it might just be possible that … instead of getting her stomach pumped … all the stuff about "The Comet" she writes about actually happened, and Lady Edith just simply can't keep a secret to save her or, in particular, m … _his_ goddamn life."

"…"

"What? Yous his lawyer or somethin? The Herb fucks his classy British aunt … I mean, enough said, right!"

"Alright, alright … Yeah, cause, the stomach pump, that makes more sense." There was grumbled grudging sarcasm as the youth went back to cracking the safe with a bitter shake of his head.

"And to think my little sister is addicted to those damn books she writes, too …"

"Yeah, my little cousin got a poster of her daughter or whateva on her wall, what's her name?"

"Your little cousin?"

"No, shithead, Lady Edith's girl … ahhh … you know, the fairy princess looking dame …"

"Oh, the ballerina … uhh, shit …"

"Marigold."

They all turned once more to the youth who had halted what he was doing. But this time he did not look at them. They watched in sudden interest as the young man's eye lightened and was overtaken by a deep and private sorrow of some terrible calamity of the heart. In his wistful look out at the waves of the sea in the distance there was the scars as deep and tragic as the physical ones across his eye.

"Her name is Marigold." There was something distant and longing in his soft and whispered voice. For a moment it was as if he was attempting to look through a mirror at some golden days of yore, only to find that the hallow glass was cracked and broken, distorting everything good and pure in a world that didn't seem to make sense anymore. The youth cleared his throat, sniffing hard as he shook his head and went back to cracking the safe.

They all looked at one another in confusion and a bit of empathy. Even criminals have had broken hearts, some worse than others. Yet, they wouldn't believe, not in a million years, that a ragged young wanderer such as this, with threadbare clothing and hardened eyes, would ever get a million miles near someone like the golden goddess, Marigold Crawley, the Prima Ballerina of the world. But it seemed that in his moment of desolation and deep melancholy, it made him seem even more a poor and lonely vagabond in contrast to the fine elegance of one of the most beautiful women in all of Europe, if not the world itself. They guessed, even a kid like this, had a breaking point. And it just so happened that thinking of that golden-haired beauty, so far away, and the impossibility of being near her had been his. They had all been there, the thugs guessed, some broad or dame that they dreamt about and yet couldn't have.

But there was something different, something more tragic about the youth's appearance in that long look out across the sea, as if he could still see the sun in her long golden tresses all the way in England. There was a purity that couldn't be missed, a righteousness that was unspoken but felt in the tragic sorrow upon him and his ragged appearance. It was some manifestation of a dream within a dream on some distant shore were an angelic Annabel Lee waited for him. Yet, it was never meant to be, could never be, not in a million lifetimes. And so, he remained, resign to what they all thought he was, what he allowed himself to seem in appearance. Ever having known that any other station of pride and birthright would be just as empty without the one of whom he dreamt. She had been the rarest of jewels whose very existence in his heart had kept him alive through many hardships of the road and dangers of battle over these long and hard melted years of bitter exile. Now she was lost to him for all time, even as she lived a grander and more blessed life than anyone could have dreamt or hoped as a mother's secret hidden on Yew Tree Farm.

The matchstick man took off his hat, scratching his scalp in awkward sympathy, the room somehow suddenly getting heavier with emotions that muddied everything. The others seemed to look around uncomfortably at the short but incredibly weighty feelings that seemed contagious in the magnetism of a doomed love too strong to be contained. Yet, only Sid, seemed to twig, even just a twitch of something that was overlooked. Though, he wasn't sure what he thought he might be onto in the short conversations they had in the past few minutes with the youth.

"How did you, exactly, know that this safe was here?" He asked suspiciously.

There was a long quiet moment. "I didn't … I spent the last week pouring over the original blueprints for this place, going wing by wing, room by room." The youth quickly had reigned in his emotions, though his face was unreadable with his back to them. "It only occurred to me when I remembered something the old son of a bitch told me. "Mother kept what was precious all in one spot, so she wouldn't forget one without the other if there was a fire …"" He quoted under his breath.

"What old man?" Tony suddenly asked, wondering if there might be more here at play than they thought.

"Harold Levinson." The youth replied. The sudden clank of something heavy made it sound that the kid was getting closer.

"You work for Harold Levinson?" The head thug asked in profound surprise.

The youth frowned in annoyance. "No, but when we met up in Fort Worth, I shook on a partnership for an expedition to reclaim the Levinson family heirlooms." He explained. "Agreed to a fifty split down the middle … I had my eye on one thing in particular and he had his own designs for the rest of it." His voice got quieter as he began listening intently for the last pin.

The smooth talker nodded stroking his chin fondly. "Oh, yeah, I remember Harold Levinson … he used to frequent the same speak easies the old boss used to pop into. They played cards together once or twice. I mean, he was shit at it, but I'll tell you one thing, that man knew how to have fun, eh?" He nudged the matchstick man in the ribs.

The mustached figure removed the wood from between his teeth. "Yeah, yeah, I remember he used to roll into some boardwalk casino down in Atlantic City, five broads deep, all of them in those flapper dresses the short skirts? Fuckin smooth as their legs, yous know? And then he'd spend three grand on drinks and cigars, center of attention in the joint, always had a big crowd around him. Then, randomly he'd tow outta there with six new broads, just like that! Some of them even Vogue models. Goddamn, the man knew how to live!" He was grinning ear to ear.

"Yeah, he was one of them smart Jews, you know …" the smooth talker tapped his friend on the chest with a wink. "Get other people to do his dirty work, huh, kid?!" He laughed at the young man who was only half listening. Yet, the comment suddenly put Tony on edge, thinking that they weren't the only ones in the house.

"Yeah, speaking of which, where is the old Kike?" He asked somewhat aggressively, smelling a double cross somehow.

"Dead …"

It might have been the reaction of most to think what the gangsters thought in that moment. Or, perhaps, it was just common in their line of business. But at the revelation that Harold Levinson was dead, and yet, his business partner was not, but instead was fleecing his family home, brought the four thugs to listen a little closer, more suspicious. If the youth would not suffer rivals, then he just might not suffer them.

"Realtering the fifty split, eh, kid?" the smooth talker didn't seem judgmental, maybe even a bit admiring the moxy of the kid to cut out dead weight on the bottom line. That was, if he wasn't so warry that the same fate wouldn't be waiting for him.

"You asking if I killed him?" The youth seemed intense with a sudden dark tone that made them nervous when he only half turned back, his face shadowed in the midday sun.

"Did you?" Sid asked.

The youth looked incredibly grim. "No …" He answered, going back to the safe. "Died about a month ago." He shook his head.

The youth seemed aged beyond a thousand years, his eyes growing incredibly hard in a flash of memories. "The monster I was hunting snatched his girl in an ambush when we were in New Orleans … it murdered her." The boy's jaw was screwed tightly with a whirlwind of sorrow, hatred, and rage in his fallen face as he looked deep into the rust of the safe. "The darkness got ahold of him- couldn't shake it." His breath caught in the only show of outward emotion over the entire recounting of the tragic ordeal. His implacable glowing eyes could've bore a hole through the safe faster than it took to crack the locks inside. When it was over, he only shook his head, baring whatever dark memories of the incident, and carrying on.

There was a quiet mourning amongst the crowd that watched the back of the youth. They didn't know Harold Levinson personally, but like this whole trip to this desolate ruin by the sea, it said a lot. Most of them remembered the philanthropist playboy. He had always been in the paper, either for the right or the wrong reasons. But he was always there, two, three, six diamond dames deep, whisky in hand, and cash in his pockets. For so many poor Immigrant boys, hard scrabble, hearing their parent's boxing matches in the kitchen, that seemed like a life they wanted. In that way, Harold Levinson was a kinda hero to them, this gateway to the fantasy life of the American Dream. But now, six years into what they're calling a 'Great Depression', this idol of their generation had died in some rundown nowhere in New Orleans.

"I guess he really did love her, huh?" Sid said thoughtfully into the deep sullen silence.

For a moment, a second, the youth caught the sunlight that was so pronounced by the dust particles in the air. There, were the light shined on a brown-haired dolly in gilded gown, he could almost see Madeleine Allsopp's smile. The two of them, a broke playboy in mended suit, and a ruined and used debutante, two-time ex-wife to a New York Yankee, hadn't missed a beat after so many years since they last saw each other. He was still her ticket to happiness, and years of a broken man's regrets were quieted in a single glance of soft eyes that, after so long, still saw him as somebody when the rest of his 'good time gals' had dried up with the Levinson Fortune. Together they danced to "Faded Love" by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys at last call after a long night in the Fort Worth Stockyards. What little hair Harold did have left was white, and hard times and heartbreaks since that glorious coming out season in London showed ever slightly on Madeleine's still lovely face. But as the lonesome fiddle played it seemed only for the two. The smallest of sad smirks had touched a young man that leaned against the empty bar, watching two people who never looked anywhere but each other's eyes. Together, they had glided over saw dust and peanut shells of the old west dive like it had been Grantham House's ballroom in 1922.

"I guess he did …" The boy blinked back emotion, locking his jaw against the memory. "In the end." He nodded distractedly. In that moment, he knew he shouldn't have …

But he thought of Marigold.

"And the monster who did her …?" Tony asked. They didn't see it, but they saw the youth suddenly tense and look away from the light, sinking into the shadows.

"The filth has killed its last innocent."

The darkened young man's hand went up and wiped a thick stream of ectoplasm that suddenly ran down his cheek from two visible reminders of one brutal final duel, one final collision course, that had been eight years in the making.

They flinched when an angry hand grabbed the handle to the safe and turned it with one powerful yank of aggression from dark memories. There was a loud echoing clank that thundered through the large bedroom and out into the echoing pillared chasm of a tiled sitting room below. There was a stench of a terribly stale smell that whiffed from the darkened compartment that had felt it's first oxygen in decades. The youth looked through the sudden array of valuables that sat in the safe. He shuffled through hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of bonds for a bank that no longer existed. There were stacks of cash with all the wrong presidents on them. He figured he'd keep them for cook fire fuel if it came down to it.

He frowned when he grasped a white box with no label. It seemed aged and forgotten, the white beiger and more yellowed in the daylight. But when he opened it, he got an eye full of a great sapphire jewel that was connected to aged silver netting. The priceless headpiece, once wore by an American Princess at her coming out ball, still matched the same cerulean eyes that looked down upon it. Taking the beautiful headpiece into his palm, rubbing a thumb over the jewel, he was suddenly attacked by sentimentality of a picture of a great beauty that once sat on the nightstand of the Lord of Grantham's dressing room. Without a thought, out of instinct, the youth took the silver netted sapphire and placed it in his jacket pocket.

But as he did so, he noticed that the action was not missed by the curious figures who grew restless, suspicious, and even ill favored at the sight of the youth already pocketing mysterious valuables of what made the hard deck of the Levinson fortune. Turning back, the youth grabbed a couple of random things.

"Here … fifty split." The youth tossed Jewelry store labeled boxes that once belonged to Martha Levinson out toward the crowd of thugs slowly inching closer, smelling the potential riches. They each caught a box, except for Tony who found himself with a ludicrously large tiara that was once worn at a daughter's first dinner at Downton Abbey as Viscountess. It was gilded with intricate vine work of a master goldsmith, the roses within the headpiece were made of pure ruby.

"It goes with your eyes, right?" He ribbed back at the big Sicilian, remembering the shots taken at him for the wedding dress that was pressed tightly against his lower back. There was a chortle from his comrades, causing the man to hit each of them on the arm … but he didn't let go of Martha's tiara. "When I get what I came for … you can take what you want." He offered when he saw what he knew would happen.

The gilded and ruby jewelry pieces bought at cost from Vicksburg Mississippi in 1859 that was offered to them did not sate, but only furthered their greedy hunger for more wealth. While they had explored the deathly quiet and abandoned manor, they had refused to take anything of worth, sensing some doom or curse unexplainable on every item. But when it came to the foundation of the Levinson Fortune, the dream of amassing such wealth that they could more than just withstand the Depression but call the shots during it … that was hard to pass up.

At this moment, most would've panicked at the thought of a long and bloody fight that would come with black hearted mad dogs turned rabid in a lustful avarice. But the youth knew that things in Levinson Manor were not what they seemed. Fore, as a survivor of the American Union's occupation of New Orleans during the American War of Secession, Martha Levinson knew much of what a marauder did and did not see when looting a fine mansion that belonged to the classiest of all Southern Belles. And thus, when the young man, many decades later, reached into the darkness of her safe and felt the silken tendrils thread around his fingers, he knew he had _it_. The jackals, inching closer, suddenly were stopped in the tracks when the youth pulled out the one thing they weren't expecting. At the sight of it, there was an audible sound of confused dismay that took the thugs completely out of their minds.

The item had been crafted, made, by a Traiteur fortune teller of the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1873. By 'chance', a young girl had wandered away from her momma and nanny maid. There, wadding through the fog coming off the riverfront, a frightened black-haired beauty came across an old woman standing in front of her shop in the deep back alleys of the city. She stopped the little girl in her tracks, puffing on a long Vodun pipe, her sage and rosemary like breath smelling much like the fog swirling about the waist of the cerulean eyed child in white lacy dress and matching hair ribbon. The girl seemed frightened, yet, answered honestly when the mysterious woman asked if she, like her, was drawn to this very spot through the fog. Then, lifting the young girl up into her arms, the fortune teller only smirked as she stroked the little girl's pale cheek.

Puffing on her pipe, the woman told little Cora Levinson that she had 'a bit'o destiny' about her.

By the time a young and fiery Martha Levinson had caught up with her little girl, she was standing by the side of a busy street near the St. Louis Graveyards and across the river. In her arms she clutched the finest little doll that anyone had ever seen. She claimed that she could not recall of how she got it, or who gave it to her. In fact, a teary and frightened Cora Levinson could not say what had happened, or if she had even gone anywhere since she last saw her momma. All she knew was that when she awoke from her foggy dream, she had the dolly in her arms.

Looking down the narrow alley the young woman saw a shadowed figure puffing on a pipe and wreathed in fog of her own making. For a long beat she watched her till the mysterious old woman was overtaken by her own haze, disappearing from all sight and knowledge. Then, studying the doll, the Southern Belle returned it to the girl, neither punishing nor harshly reprimanding her little girl. Having been born and raised in New Orleans, she knew better than to question the unexplainable or thwart the fated doom prescribed to those who wander to purpose on the ancient streets of the City of the Dead.

From then on, the girl never went anywhere without the doll. Even in the years when her reputation and prospects for fine courtly marriages of aristocracy depended on it. She could not, and would not, be parted with her 'best friend'. It seemed that one mysterious doll, above all, was everything to a young girl, a teenage girl, and became a true wrench to be parted with as a woman grown with two young daughters and one more to make up for the loss of it.

Now, many years later, it was held in the worn and stitched leather of fingerless gauntlets of a teenage boy long foreseen on a foggy French Quarter back alley. Carefully, gently, the youth took her out of the safe to the dismay of the thugs. His eyes softened and his breath became visible through an emotionally heaving chest. Throat clearing, there was an angry sniff as he turned the doll over and looked into the face.

It was lifelike, human almost in its crafting. The porcelain was an unblemished milky pale, with painstakingly detailed painted freckles on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were amber, red tinted in the light. It was maybe the most beautiful doll ever made, with long ringlets of perfect chocolate tresses. Her frame was slim and elegant, her expression cold with just a bit of sorrow hidden in her depths. She was the image of high-class aristocracy in the high watermark days of the British upper classes. For the first time the youth clutched the great prize that he had spent many years searching for. And his breath sputtered to find a face he had not gazed upon since before then. Yet, it was a face he could not forget, no matter how he tried. He didn't know if it was possible that this was it, that this single toy was all that there was. All the bad things that had happened in eight years, it all was because of this one thing, this one dolly, with _'her'_ face.

"So much death, pain, suffering …" His voice audibly cracked a moment. "And all of it for this?" He gritted his teeth as something ran down his eye, though no one was sure if it was a tear or droplet of venom. after a long bitter moment there was only a scoffed laugh that escaped his throat that sounded slightly unhinged.

He looked deeply into the doll's face. "It would be her …" he said nonsensically to anyone who wasn't in his head. "If it was going to be anyone, it would've been her." He sounded emotional, taking the beautiful doll in hand harshly. A sudden memory of an ancestral home far away came over him. It was but a snapshot that was a mark, a tattoo upon him, a moment on a snowy Christmas Eve morning in which a woman with a face identical to the doll looked up to him and his offered medicine she sent him to get … and hated him. In that sliver of time which seemed forever and eternal, that great lady hated a mere young child, her own boy, more than she would ever hate anything in his or her entire life. Then, in violent emotions that came intrinsically with everything about that fateful day, the youth made a frighteningly angry noise, he lifted the doll up into the air and made a motion as if he was going to smash it. The thugs leapt back at the look of pure rage and hate in the elemental thunder and lightning of the youth's haunted eyes.

It could be said that no one in existence had ever hated a more coveted item that had been long sought for at a greater personal risk to body, mind, and their everlasting soul.

They had died, they had all died. Friends, enemies, innocent people, and so many others. Martha Levinson's staff wore tormented, mutilated, and left to die in agony hung upside down on a willow tree. Madeleine Allsopp had only wanted to go home with the man she loved. Harold Levinson just wanted a house somewhere quiet with the only good thing that life had ever dropped in his lap. Lillian Bordeaux had just wanted to love a foolish young boy that refused to return home, bent on revenge that he had no right to take. The days spent digging graves of those young comrades that had followed their captain, believed in him, and came back to save him when he got in over his head in the end. They were all dead, and because of this one item hidden in obscurity by a selfish old crone. A bitter, mouthy, battle axe who died a cruel death with faith that the only descendent of hers that showed real spirit could finish what she started. It didn't matter who died, or how many lives would be ruined by her paranoid games. As long as he proved that she hadn't made a mistake in taking him out of a tense home life and fostering him across the sea. In the twisted and terrible moments of his life, it seemed strange that one item that had brought so much horror and suffering was also a symbol of the one person in his life who had truly believed in him, bet on him, even to the bitter end.

In that realization, through the violent swing of an arm that caused the onlookers to back away, the doll did not leave the youth's hand.

Instead, the figure, with a pained face of deep begrudgement, brought the doll back to gaze upon it. With angry chattering teeth, he gently stoked the silky soft tresses of the doll's hair with shaky hand. Then, he pressed his forehead against hers as he squeezed his eyes shut. They knew not of the face that would've been recognizable to anyone who read the gossip and societal pages of any paper in two countries. But to a young man, the woman who he saw was one that haunted his mind and heart for so long. Her simple look of pure venom, more painful than the wound he bore upon his eye, still lived in him and everything he had ever done. And it was with a terrible burden of pain that he saw her in the face of the doll that so much bad had happened in the pursuit of.

With panted and emotionally pained breaths, he hugged the doll to his chest with gritted teeth of a hurt too powerful to place into words that could comprehend the elemental nature of one's own soul. He let out wheezed breaths into the top of the doll's head, eyes squeezed shut. Before he finally let out a deep breath that released eight long years of conflict so deep it nearly fractured a soul into tiny pieces. He placed a leather clad hand on his forehead under goggles and rubbed it in an attempt to refocus all of who and what he was.

The thugs were momentarily shocked silent at the very strange and emotionally heavy display that revolved around a high-class looking dolly. They didn't seem to know what to do or say when they watched the youth leap down off the Hope Chest, unlooping his navy-blue aviator's scarf from his neck. There was a wordless stutter from all who saw the young man begin wrapping the beautiful girl's toy in it. They all looked rather confused when it seemed that the youth was just walking away from whatever else was in the safe. And all of it for one wedding gown and a little girl's toy, in a room filled with nothing but evening gowns and dolls.

"Ya gonna leave all that loot there, Just like that?" Tony looked as if he was gazing at his plumber father wearing one of the Queen of England's gowns.

Then, for a very long moment, the ragged wanderer looked out at the glare of the sun off the aqua tinted ocean in the distance. No one was sure what he was looking at, but the answer did not lay in the physical. The youth's mind, instead, was flooded with many memories of places and faces of the last eight years that seemed to be projected on the ocean surface like it was a cinema screen. The many smiles and tears, love and heartbreak, and the unforgettable and indescribable things seen by young eyes. All of them were wrapped up in snapshots of moments lived by many different people of class, color, and character that he could still name by heart. But in the end, it would mean nothing to anyone but himself. He looked down at the doll in hand and nodded to seemingly no one. Yet, in his mind, the room seemed quite filled by the many ghosts that haunted and lived through the many adventures and hard times of a young man so far for so long from a home that hadn't existed since a fateful Christmas morning long ago.

"Just like that …"

He confirmed softly to the ocean winds as he slid the doll into his inner jacket pocket and went to leave.

**HHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMPPPPPPHHH!**

"OH SHIT!"

There was an incredibly violent shutter that shook the bedchamber with more ferocity than there had been before. Not a figure was standing, as they lost grips on bed stands. Shelves filled with dolls toppled with mighty and thunderous crashes, making cracked porcelain shatter with high pitched and sharp noises that prickled the skin on the back of the neck. A teenage beauty's vanity collapsed forward sending glass shards across the white, gilded, and black painted tile of the opulent princess's bedroom. Men and youth were sent every which way as the primalness of the roar grew tenfold. Everything about the episode spoke to the situation getting so much worse. It was the first thought of the figure who quickly got back to his feet.

"Damn, it's starting to get ripe down there …" He breathed thoughtlessly, patting the decades of filth off his leather jacket.

"What is?" The smooth talker asked angrily, beating glass and dust off his feathered wide brim fedora.

The youth quickly realized what he said was heard. "Whatever is down there …" He covered quickly with a clear of his throat and an ignorant shrug.

"Hey, asshole, ya said you've been here a week, so what the fuck is up?!" The matchstick figure accused in frustration. He, in particular, found his good pinstripe suit completely ruined, as if he had rolled around in a chalk factory.

The youth rolled his eyes. "I don't know, it didn't start doing that till you guys got here." He argued back. "What did you do down there?!" He asked suspiciously.

"Us?! Hey, we didn't do shit, kid!" The smooth talker yelled.

"Well somebody did!" The matchstick man shouted angrily. "Look at my goddamn suit, I look like something stuck up the boss's fuckin girl's nose!" He motioned to the white covered black and blue silk suit.

"Yeah, as opposed to lookin like something that was stuck up cha old lady's ass on the day yous was born?"

"Hahahaha!"

"Yo, go fuck ya motha, Tony!" The filth covered thug made an aggressively offensive gesture flicking his thumb at the larger Sicilian from his forehead.

Over the laughter and suddenly booming argument that was mostly in Italian, the mysterious figure turned from his spot only to find the shrimp staring at him with a puzzled frown. The youth was quiet, also racked with confusion, not knowing what the smallest, most out of place, of the group of thugs was looking at him for. But then he saw the small pencil pusher look down at something in his hand. When cerulean eyes saw the triple fold frame of silver in the suddenly suspicious man's hands, he cursed under his breath.

The picture frame was not a gift given to a little girl, teenage girl, or even a newly wed Viscountess. Instead it belonged to the Countess of Grantham, given to her as a Christmas gift by her three daughters. In each frame was a glamorous portrait picture of all three of Lady Cora's daughters taken at the most prestigious photo studio in New York during a family holiday to their Grandmama's Houses during the Christmas Season of 1911.

Lady Mary Crawley, at the beguiling age of twenty, was the most glamorous of the girls with a smoldering look in her white Edwardian evening gown, matching silk elbow gloves, and ornamental fan of lace. Lady Edith Crawley wore a green gown of velvet, her mouth slightly open, as she struck a pose that maybe was trying too hard to outdo the effortlessness of her older sister's elegance. And last was the prized beauty, the gem of the county crown of Grantham. Lady Sybil wore a blue evening gown that matched that of her older sister. As a teenager, she didn't know what she was to buy for her first ever portrait, but she knew she liked Mary's dress. There was and could only be one person in the world at the time that Lady Mary Crawley would ever allow to steal her style, and that was her beloved baby sister. Yet, unlike Mary, who believed her portrait might hang in the picture shop as a shining example. And unlike Edith who seemed, even in a simple picture, to not fully accomplish what she wished from the experience. Lady Sybil was both effortless and genuine in the simplicity of a smile, thinking of how much she hoped their mama would like the present, and think of her girls whenever she saw it.

The problem with Sid 'The Squint' finding the pictures was many folded. One was that the shrimp recognized Lady Mary Crawley and Lady Edith Pelham. One sister was the talk of two countries, the anticipation of her coming marriage to Roger Sinclair, top three of the highest grossing actors in Hollywood, was _**the**_ talk of most people. While one could not go into any bookstore and or little girl's bedroom without finding the Marchioness of Hexham's face on the jacket of any one of her best-selling young adult novels.

But the largest problem that faced the youth was that Sid noticed something strange. The youngest girl, the teenage dish, she looked familiar to him. Glancing from her to the youth in front of him, he couldn't help but notice that they had the same hair, the same eyes, the same general face. In fact, seeing the ragged figure and the girl in the photo at the same age, with exception of the kid having a darker tan, both the young man and Lady Sybil were practically identical twins. But most weird of all was that Lady Mary Crawley had the same jaw, same eyebrows as the young man standing there. There was a growing similarity, quite a strong one, in fact, between the kid and Lady Mary Crawley.

In fact, Sid might just say that the two ridiculously good-looking people were … closely related.

_THUCK!_

"OH!"

"What the fuck, Kid?!"

The three arguing gangsters whirled around to see the raven-haired teenager was standing over a crumpled Sid. The shrimp was curled up around his stomach, wincing and gasping having been rocked in the gut by a granite fist that hit like a sledgehammer. The small man was writhing on the dusty floor when the youth quickly snatched up the folding frame that had fallen. There was something almost school yard bullyish about the fact that his next move was to completely obliterate the plebe gangster's glasses with the sole of a fascistic motorcycle boot taken off a choked out Mexican policeman in Saltillo.

"Oh, come on, our aunt paid for those with her homemade sauce money!" Tony scoffed half-heartedly.

But the youth only turned in alarm pointing out the pathetically gasping figure worming around on the bedchamber floor. "Watch'em boys!" He announced. "You don't know what you're dealing with!" he warned them seriously.

"A guy who got pantsed in front of all the girls in school when he climbed the rope in gym?"

"…"

"Yo, ya went to school?"

"Do it look I went to school?!"

"Sure, sure … It don't sound like it."

"And what, ya some kinda a fuckin genius, huh?"

"No!" The kid got their attention back. "But he is!" He pointed to the figure who suddenly looked green, as if, at any moment, he might vomit all over the floor.

"Sid 'The Squint'?" The matchstick man frowned in revulsion at either the sight of his drooling compatriot or the odd color he was turning.

"Don't believe it, boys!" The kid announced passionately. "He might look like oiled up calamari! But I'm telling you, guys, it's all an act!" There was a fervent charisma of alarmism in the youth's voice that attracted them.

"Please … not say … calamari … or oily … ghuff!"

"He's a snake in the grass, boys!" The youth accused after giving the nauseous shrimp a kick to shut him up. "I'm tell'ya he's working for the Feds!" He pointed out.

"The Feds?!" Tony said in outrage. Yet, he turned all of it on the crumpled figure. "The fuck is going on?!" He nearly flew off the handle.

"Hold on, hold on, one fuckin minute here, kid …" The Smooth Talker waltzed up coolly, emphasizing his point with his hands. "This is Sid we're talking about here! I mean, look at him, he looks like the goddamn jawbreakers in the candy store kicked his little Gumba ass when he was kid … and now yous sayin he's on Hoover's payroll?" He scoffed waving the youth off.

"Sure, but that's what I'm saying here, boys … I mean look at him!"

"…"

"…"

"New guy, pencil pusher, square as a piece of toast. He doesn't fit in, doesn't know first thing about the business, but he desperately wants to be one of you. I'm tell you, boys, you're being infiltrated, and you don't even know it!"

"Yo, yo, wait, wait … Didn't Sid pay for that salami on rye down at Cacciatori's?"

"Yeah, yeah, any Paisano would know that the old man is paid up, we get the eats for free, you know?"

"So why is he payin for a goddamn sandwich?"

"I've seen it a hundred times out here, guys. You count out the little guy, kick him around, then, you ignore him, forget he's there, and hears all your secrets and starts telling'em downtown to all those Irishmen paid up to the Knickerbockers and WASPS on the Upper Westside."

"… Come On … I'll stop payin for food … AGH!"

"No one is asking yous, snitch!"

Suddenly, Tony grabbed his cousin off the floor and dragged him over to a far wall where he pinned the fish like former bureaucrat who looked sick to his stomach. The smooth talker and the matchstick man closed in tight as they lifted him off his feet. He squinted hard without his glasses at the blur of olive tanned faces that were an unfocused ball of frowns, glares, and angry suspicion.

"Ya gettin sloppy out there, squint!"

"Yeah, Yeah, yous gettin a cut of that cashy tax money and can't help flashin it around like some ignorant Guinea fresh off the boat, ain't ya?"

"Fellas, it ain't like that!" he stammered blindly. "I'm loyal, I'm tellin'ya!" He begged.

"Sid, yous blood, I brought you in, told the boss yous was a Paisano, now ya goin behind our back?! Is that how it is, eh?!"

"Nah, Tony, it ain't nothin like that!"

"Then, what's it like, squint?!"

"I paid old man Cacciatori cause I'm sweet on a girl that works there!"

"Yo, what girl?"

"Magdalena …"

"Who?"

"Ain't that his granddaughter?"

"It is ain't it?"

"No …!"

"Ain't she eleven?"

"I know you ain't scoping out none of that tweeny stuff, Sid?!

"No, Tony, honest …"

"If yous that desperate go get a fuckin hooker, I swear, yous gonna kill Aunt Maria if she finds out!"

"Nah, I swear, it's Magdalena, you know the second shift waitress!"

"The fat one or the lazy eyed one?"

"…"

"Aren't we talkin the same girl?"

"…"

"What's up, Sid? I mean, whatya doin? Huh? Ya wanna embarrass me out here? Ya know, they ain't givin out no trophies for fuckin the bearded lady at the carnival, fuckhead?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'd rather be caught with the eleven-year-old than that side-show."

"No, the new girl, she's Austrian!"

"Like Kangaroos and shit?"

"No, Austrian, like Vienna …"

"The sausage?"

"If that's a nickname for your dick, I'd say you at least got the size right."

"Nah, she's a good girl, you know …"

"What, now yous ashamed of our job?"

"Nah, come on, Tony …"

"I pull you in, and now yous ashamed? Look at him, does that look like a shamed man?"

"What, yous too good?"

"Come on, she's Dutch, ya know, I don't know what she likes."

"I thought you said she was Australian?"

"Austrian …"

"Yeah, that's what I fuckin said …"

"Fine, fuckin, fine … Whateva … but I'll tell ya, is she Catholic?"

"Of course, Tony, come on …"

"Cause, if yous chasing one of them WASPS, Grand's gonna beat you to death from her grave, you know?"

"I know, I know …"

"Our Grandparents didn't come over just so yous can spit on His Holiness, just cause yous in the New World, capisce?"

"Yeah, I get it, I get it!"

Eventually, they finally decided to let Sid go. He made a surprised and startled noise when he landed with a heavy flop at their feet. They all traded suspicious looks, not quite sure if they could trust the outsider to their way of life. But either way there was more pressing matters to attend to than who the squint was chasing the skirt of. They could almost smell the gold and jewels that were about to be left abandoned by their new best friend. They each gave Sid a kick for good measure as he still recovered from the devastating punch to his gut. Then, annoyed with their comrade they turned languidly.

"Hey, kid, I wouldn't worry about it. The squint's just chasin … tail …"

But there was no one there.

The matchstick man took the wooden slither from his teeth. "Hey, where did he go?" He turned to The smooth talker.

"Beats me … Yo, Tony … ehhh?" He paused.

In the center of Lady Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham's old teenage bedroom, the large and ill-tempered Sicilian stood still as a statue. The two other thugs watched in puzzlement at the large meaty hand that was plastered heavily over his large face. Slowly, the other hand joined it till they both completely masked his expression. They watched in confusion as the large, thin mustache, figure slowly, thoroughly, began scrubbing, making angry muffled noise from his nose against his large palms. Every limb and inch of his torso was tensed with insurmountable frustration, anger, and a deep painful embarrassment that had turned his face beet red.

The most famous of the many great paradoxes that faced those who had the misfortune of thinking that collecting the many and varied prices on George Crawley's head would be easy was simply this. No one, in all the eight years since Lady Mary Crawley exiled her only son to the care of Martha Levinson, knew what exactly George Crawley looked or sounded like. There were plenty of people that knew of a George Levinson, a Matthew Barrow, or Robert Bates. Yet, it wasn't till much later that they read their own story from the secondhand account of Lady Edith Pelham in the quarterly annuals of "The Sketch", that the kid that had helped or saved them was in fact George Crawley.

Thus, it was a great irony that Tony admonished his fellows for believing everything that Lady Edith wrote. Fore, due to his orthodox racist and prejudice beliefs of the stereotypes of other races and ethnic groups, his perception of the Viscount of Downton Abbey, the son of the beautiful socialite Lady Mary Crawley, was skewed. He had envisioned that of a continental type, a silver spooned gentlemen adventurer, something that resembled Alan Quartermain or a brainy eccentric like Sherlock Holmes. Instead he never figured that a youth sent away from England at the age of eight would not have ever had the teachings of the manners and etiquette of an aristocrat, nor would he bear a British accent, posh or otherwise, fore his formative years were spent in Depression America.

"Tony, what's the matta with ya?"

When the big gangster slapped his hands down, his face a deep shade of humiliated rage. His eyes were wild and feral, narrowed and small. He immediately grabbed both thugs by their jackets and shook them.

"THE YOUS TWO DOIN!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

"**GO GET THAT FUCKIN LIMEY BASTARD!" **

* * *

_In the 7__th__ and 8__th__ Century, Saxon invaders of the British Isles came across the intricate and strange ruins of the long fallen Ancient Roman Empire. Seeing such architecture and complex fortifications, the barbaric raiders from the desolate northern wastes knew not who or what built these amazing structures lost to time and knowledge. Thus, in superstitious fear and wonder, they labeled the old ruins a simple phrase in Old English _

"_**Enta Geweorc"**_

"_The Work of Giants"_

* * *

**Disclaimer**

This story is not intended to make any modern political or racial statements. This is a story set in America and the British Empire of 1935-1936. Thus, the language, slurs, and thinking of **SOME** characters are of that time. So, please don't rush my review section crusading for better... lunch meat, or whatever it is you people complain about in historical fiction.

It's just a story.


	4. Enta Geweorc - Part II

**Enta Geweorc **

Part II

_The sun was draped just half-way below the wooded Yorkshire hill that stood stalwart for many long centuries before maybe even man himself had come to this place. The sky was filled with color of the likes that felt special in a way that could not be placed. The violet and orange of twilight looked like a watercolor painting in the wide country-side horizon that seemed, to a young lad, to go on forever and ever. When one is young, and doesn't know any better, rarely is the weather, beyond good or ill, ever truly observed. But years in the unforgiving Mexican desert, the arid West Texas Plains, and the humidity of the American South, had made the very idea of the most pleasant, mildly cool breeze of a Yorkshire spring seem heaven in one's own memories. He could still see the bending reeds at the creek bed bow ever so slightly to the wind. In his mind the odd whistling noises they made to add to the chorus of the rustling leaves of ancient trees still called to him. _

_Everyone else had gone home. Sybbie and Marigold went back to Downton to get ready for a royal presentation after dinner at the Abbey. They had been overjoyed and nervous, leaving early at a trot to get on their "Glamorous" new frocks, have their hair done by Anna and Baxter, and most excitedly, they were both to have their very first tiny stitch of make-up. Meanwhile, everyone else of the village had the usual Friday dinner with their family. At the end of the day, the young boy found himself sitting alone, filled leather pack with blanket rolled under flap next to him. His Grams and Dickie were off on business, so there had been no one there to greet him when he had come home from the latest sea expedition with the Captain and his crew. _

_Grams would make a fuss when they got home, would be incredibly apologetic. She hated to forget things, and after the baby … well, she was a lot more self-conscious. He had heard Anna say something about his Grams and Dickie missing even the Royal Family to go for a visit to the hospital in York. But with one sharp look from Bates, she caught herself and changed the subject. The young boy didn't need anyone to tell him that his Grams was sick, but at the time he had no idea just how bad it was. And till this day the thought, the knowing, yet the ignorance of the severity of it, after eight years gone, still bothered him some nights._

_It had been a long time since he had gotten a letter from his Grams. _

_What he remembered about that evening, beyond the colors, the setting sun sinking below the tall trees at the twin hill peaks, was weighty existential conflict. He had much on his mind, rubbing a thumb over silver trinket in hand that he had not let go of since he took it. It looked a fob watch now, but to his memory that was not what it was when he had found it. And ever since he had taken it and escaped with what few treasures from that submerged kingdom, his mind was occupied by questions that came in the return to the world he had left a month ago. _

_He thought of nothing but the things he had seen in that lost place forgotten to all knowledge, the city, the marble tombs at the foot of a large mountain under countless fathoms of ocean. In his mind he could still see the great spire that seemed holy, reverent, and not easily dismissed as something lesser than any other wonder he had seen on the expedition. Somehow witnessing those ruins, the architecture of the like unseen in the world, the sunken statues, it had all made a boy of his young age contemplative of many things that no other boy in the village of Downton would even be aware of. Yet, ancient trinket in hand, his gaze went out to the long distance, on the peak to the right, and there for the first time, after a million overlooks, he saw it._

_The great church, the mighty citadel to protect an abbey, or was it the sacred tomb of lovers long ago? It was a tall Roman building, added upon, expanded, by King Alfred 'The Great's' rudimentary architects. From his spot by the creek, he could see the ivy wrapped columns, the trees that grew wild in the courtyards of stone, and the moss slicked walls shielded by wild branches which cover symbols and carvings unknown. What was it? What had it been? No one could dare say. It had been here for so long, been a part of the land, the people, that they had forgotten. The once stone path that led into the wild wooded hills beyond the estate had been lost, reclaimed by nature. _

_Now, no one cared. _

_They did not see it. But once, long ago, it had meant something, something important to everyone who had been here, had walked these lands. But those people and their descendant's descendants were dust he walked on, and the memory, the tribute of the sacred place upon the slope, was but a moldering old collection of stone that no one cared to question. What secrets did it hold? Would it even matter if he were to climb that hill tomorrow and find out for himself? Would he enter that place of wonder and mystery ever knowing, truly, what its special meaning was or how dear and sacred were the artifacts that had been left behind? _

_He remembered that sunken city, that sunken island continent. He could still see the domed buildings, the tall statues of maiden's fair, of great kings with plated armor and winged helmets crowned. He had walked the streets and saw the tall skeletons of a many thousand, perhaps even millions, of years old. He held their treasures grimly. With his own hands, the boy had picked up their rotted texts. He had watched the accumulation of great wisdom and knowledge that has been long forgotten to humanity slide out of the moldy leather-bound spine and splat about his feet like soaked mulch. He had seen their tombs, their decaying pearl white marble halls filled with opulent and splendid statues of the likeness of their kings and queens at the peak of their power. Strong and beautiful faces that seemed to live forever by those who remembered them at the height of their glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. Now their stories, their descriptions, were something that Sybbie scoffed at, that Marigold only nodded and smiled when he told the provincial and sheltered heiresses of wealth and privilege of such wonderous and mysterious things he had seen by their spot next to the creek. _

_Since that day in the High King's tomb at the bottom of the very ocean, the boy wondered, pondered, if it was possible that perhaps there would come a time when … _

_He thought about everything that had happened since that Christmas last year. How strongly it had changed everything in his life. How deep a pain welled that he could never be rid of, only endure. How long since he had been cast out of his home, sent to live in his father's house with his Grams and Dickie. He did not know what went on at Downton anymore, fore Sybbie did not seem to pay attention, her extravagant and privileged life unchanged. But deep down, the child knew that they all remembered the baby so vividly. Sometimes he could still hear her when he sleeps in his father's old room … or his room now, he guessed. Sometimes he still felt wrong in not checking the nursery in a house he no longer lived in. It seemed so real, so pervasive, this pain, this loss. It overtook his life and his existence, it made him who he was now, and maybe who he would ever be to those who, probably, loved him much less now. _

_But looking out at the ruin on the hill, it bothered him. It wounded him to know, for the first time, that things end. That in five hundred years no one would ever remember the baby, that no one would care. That someday this place would be as forgotten, taken as meaningless to whoever trod the ground as that same ruin that stood guard on the slopes overlooking an abbey. Then, it would be over, and it would seem meaningless, a footnote in some text that another boy on board a science pirate's clockwork submersible vessel would translate as part of his advanced education. When that would happen who would care that the sweetest of innocence had been taken? Who would care that a boy, her own brother, did all he could to make up for what he could not when it truly mattered? _

_Who would care? _

_There was a lonesome whistle in the wind that picked up, tussling his blond curls, stinging his glassy eyes that looked out to the horizon. The first of the night's stars glimmered and glinted on the surface of the trickling creek that ran through the swaying reeds. The light in the sky dimmed, as the last rays of the sun touched the broken stained-glass of the stone ruins. It seemed that darkness had descended on the land and his heart as he looked down at the fob watch in his palm. He was unsure what it was, only that it had meant something to someone once. That it had been entrusted to him, chose him, from the very neck of the High Queen upon her sunken throne. He only knew that if someone were to find a picture of the baby, thousands of years from now, he would wish only that they'd treat it with care, with love, as he did this mysterious item that had been clutched in his hand preciously._

_With a shuttered breath he forced himself up. The soft glow of night squeezed down the last of dusk's paints to but a thin strip on the horizon. But as he got to his feet, breaking cover from the reeds at full height, he paused. Fore, he saw a figure wandering the far bank of the creek. She was a sleek and elegant piece of silk. The tall woman's rich chocolate hair was in a shorn cut bob, with bangs. She wore a silver tiara with matching satin elbow gloves, and a skintight satin dress of dark blue. Her skin was pale, nearly glowing in the starlight above. When the young explorer stood up, slinging a jangling pack full of wonderous ancient treasures over a shoulder, he was caught by surprise to see her in the distance. _

_He stared at the woman who had escaped a royal dinner party that she had organized. The house had been in an uproar, and there had been a village parade to organize, with its own capers and intrigue that had come along with it. This was by no means a victory lap, but it was a moment of quiet reflection of the chaos that would be her weekend. She did not seem to see the young child staring at her as she glided by the bank, her eyes cast out toward the horizon, arms crossed. _

_To the boy, it was like a weight that had fallen on his heart. She shined, shimmered, in the starlight. The last light of the day sparkling off her fine eveningwear and jewels. Her footsteps elegant and measured, and her beautiful face relaxed with a touch of sorrow that dimmed a light in amber eyes that was almost snuffed out. It had been months, over a full year now since they had last seen one another. He had almost forgotten what it had been like, what it used to be like to see her, to know what it was to be near her with the certainty that everything would be alright. She had been his beautiful mama, who wasn't afraid of anything, who did not balk at naming him her heir, her everything, along with Sybbie and the baby. And in times like these, after everything he saw and thought recently, there was still a part of him that reached for that relief that would come of feeling her arms around him. _

_He remembered the wind dying down, the quiet evening falling still, and a woman turning in old instinct of being able to know when her child was near. There, she softly whirled around and looked upon a young child who wasn't recognizable by his common clothing with surprise and wonder. He wore a brown double-breasted suede jacket whose sleeve was newly mended from catching a falling statue as a sacred chamber was swept away in a torrent of thundering seawater from a collapsing air bubble. Gone were the little suits with shorts, the long-collared sailor outfits they wore to match. His hair was unkempt, a head of thick waving curls of blonde that were starting to darken a Levinson raven at the roots. But it was the eyes, she knew him by the same eyes that bore the same implacable courage that had been found that one fateful Christmas. She saw now that it, and the boy himself, had only grown stronger since she had taken it upon herself to refuse him everything she had left to give, out of spite and hatred. Though, in her heart, none of such dark and terrible emotions were ever directed at him._

_Mother and child were caught in a snapshot in time as they held one another's gaze from across a starlit creek at the edges of twilight. _

"_It's been a long time since that night, do you remember?" _

"_Yes …" _

_Now, many long years later, the darkness was pitch black, impenetrable, as the stillness of a large room lay in the hollow silence. Out the stained-glass windows the moon and stars were veiled by a heavy obscurity that lay over the vast inky black ocean that rumbled without sight onto the bases of jagged rock cliff faces below. There, atop all of it, was a large and empty palace to a world of tomorrow. From a long winding cliff path, treacherous in the dark, it was marked by its great gilded gates. So opulent and tall had been their doors in the days of the Gilded Age that one would not have been surprised to have seen Saint Peter standing by them with a long party checklist. But now it was green and corroded by rust, a large and heavy chain wrapped tightly the bent and warped obstructions hanging on by rust and salt rotted hinges. There in the darkness of the sightless night were overgrown paths of white stone pocked by weeds and vines. Wild hedges and ivy had covered statues, while crustaceans creeped and crawled over moss stained and eroded mermaid carvings that sat languidly upon a large marble fountain clogged in algae and draped in seaweed. In streaks of ghost lightning from a violent storm hundreds of miles over the open ocean it is back lit … _

_Levinson Manor. _

_It's a tall, layered, and sprawling campus of whitewashed stone, sloping roofs, romantic towers, and a titanic glass dome that sticks out of the back of this fairy palace like a shell of a tortoise. The first two floors are impossible to see now, the gardens and hedge mazes untamed, unkept, now grow unruly in height and reach, ensnaring the outside grounds in a tangle of weeds and vine. But beyond the massive double doors, taken from an Austrian abbey at auction, there is nothing. _

_The items remain, the sundries, paintings, crystal, and statues. But there is a great chasm of one's own sharp footfalls that echo long and loudly through a hallow home. A great ambition built to purpose with no greater idea, no practical understanding. It was a home of pride, of decadence, but of no malicious intent. It was said that this great yawning labyrinth of tall echoing rooms and narrow passages had accomplished what it was meant for, and then, like the kings of old, faded away in time. It was but one of many temples to Bacchus that was built with no foresight to the future. It was a monument to the great excess at the end of Civil War and Manifest Destiny when the "Great American Experiment", just a century after its founding, was at the infancy of a mighty success. _

_There was no warmth, no homely signature, or great sentimentality that lay at the core of the great palace to a Tomorrowland of a fading yesterday. It had a great many things of exceeding worthlessness in a future which values hardscrabble substance and lost all fondness for the many enlightened concepts of which this gilded home of marble and crystal was built upon. It was but an abandoned ruin of an outdated way of life, not worth pillaging, or wandering in curiosity. The memories of silken gowns and top hats were but fading echoes, dreams within dreams, of a looming antiquity long forgotten to time, like the home itself. _

_Yet, he could still hear it … after so many times within a great many unique and wonderous halls of marble, iron, stone, and pine, a young adventurer knew that he was not alone, even in a place like this. It was the tap, tap, tap of some distant sound down the corridor. The slam of a door in the opposite wing that might or might not have happened. The consistency of air upon you in beat and rhythm of some phantasmal breathing of that which you cannot see. The flittered dance of the shadows in the corner of the eye, and the soft conversation in the wind down the hall. Or a single word that sounded like one's own name whispered in the dark. He knew of the 'Phantoms of the Abyss', the great poltergeists of the nothing. Were they real, or a figment of one's own imagination? It was a choice that each person makes for themselves. For each one is tailored to the mental anguish and burden of sin of each soul that lives with toil and memories that call in the quiet contemplation of the empty silence of solitude. _

_And tonight, the empty halls of Levinson Manor were not big enough to contain all the ghosts that trod from one unquiet mind. _

_A single fire burned in an empty sitting room of a stained-glass romantic tower that looked out to the East. Its dim and flickered light caused a faint reflection that shined a weak and sauntering stain of orange and blue upon a single filthy Grecian column. A halo of faded crystalline light from hanging chandelier fell spotted on a table with a finished can of beans and an unrolled leather-bound blueprint of the manor. But all together the light was insignificant, fore nothing could penetrate the deep darkness that closed in around it, choking it out, containing it in deep, smothering, shadowed outlines. _

_Rings of hazy blue smoke puffed in laconic patterns that lingered long in the encompassing blackness. There, within a tall backed armchair drawn up to the large fireplace, a solitary figure lounged alone. In his mouth there was a __**Vodun pipe **__with strange markings carved upon it__that he puffed slowly. The glow from the seaweed like material he smoked was a phosphorescent red within the horn. The embers reflected onto haunted cerulean eyes that looked deeply into the flames in thought, making them seem almost glowing in the darkness. On his lap there lay a well-worn and crinkled letter that was aged from hard travel and the elements of the road. It seemed that it had been sent years ago by the much wear on the paper, though it had only been two months. Once more, he mulled over the contents that he had read, reread, and then tossed in the rubbish, only to retrieve it an hour later to reread it again. The figure puffed out thoughtful clouds from the corner of his mouth, mind cast adrift in memories of long ago. _

_His face was half covered in nightshade, while the patch of ember light shown a youth that was hard and terribly grim. The twin scars across his eye were glossy, with a shadowed outline of black that seemed heavy in the light. They looked terribly painful and marred a fair face that was already burdened well-nigh with a mourning more deeply felt than the markings that healed at glacier pace. No one, but one, knew for whom or why such a figure seemed grim beyond his years, or why such a look of sorrow was so permanently placed on one so young and handsome. He did not say her name aloud, nor did he speak of her to anyone. But one mistake, on one terrible night in New Orleans, made by a tormented young boy caught in a net of darkness and venomous lies ensured that she would never be forgotten. Her memory was enshrined for all who would ever gaze upon the boy she loved, forever._

_That most perfect young southern belle with the innocent caramel eyes and glossy drop curls was one of many who weighed heavily in the words that he read. It was not a matter of caring or interest, but that of not knowing how to do what would be asked of him. It wasn't just a girl, or an old sensei, or the horrors of Saltillo. It was how to put those many things in perspective, how to deal with them in full, when he was not quite sure he ever would be able to. _

_Yet, it was also the deep grudge of old bitterness that ran afoul and so terribly soul deep. _

"_Do you remember what happened, next?" _

"_Yes …" _

_The soundless sight of a long liquid satin nightgown slid over filth covered tile, leaving no trail marks. She bore no robe, no straps. It was a single silvery skintight and smooth piece of fabric that outlined her entire body in its elegant and sleek perfection. Slowly a pale hand trailed across the back of his headrest as the woman languidly paced to the fire. Her skin was an ivory type of pale that had no pigmentation at all. Her chocolate hair cut in a bob as he remembered. Her amber eyes were tinted red as she turned back to the sitting figure. _

"_Did I …" She frowned in feign ignorance. "Did I hold you?" she asked with squinted eyes. _

"_You walked away …" He said softly. "You looked at me like I was some shameful evidence that implicated you in a terrible scandal … and you walked away from me, without a word." _

"_Well, to be honest, my darling, if it wasn't for that dress I might have run." She sighed. _

"_Couldn't agree more." There was bitterness in his tone. The woman smiled playfully, turning back to the fire. _

"_You couldn't actually blame me, could you?" Her velvet voice, which felt like warm milk to his ears, crooned playfully. _

"_Why not, it's a long list, I've got room." _

"_Oh, don't be a child!" She chastised with annoyance. "Sybbie and Marigold were being presented to the King and Queen after dinner, it was a big night." There was pride in her voice. _

"_Yeah? I ate beef and barley stew with homemade bread, then listened to the radio all night." _

_The woman looked over her shoulder. "You didn't actually think that the King and Queen wanted to meet __**you**__, did they?" She asked in the spirit of mocking. _

"_No, I guess not …" He conceded in a cloud of pipe smoke. "Hanoverian Trash." He slandered them under his breath with a shake of his head. _

_The woman lifted an eyebrow in superiority and turned back to the youth who was still looking at the fire. _

"_So, will you do it?" She asked looking at the letter on his lap._

"_What's it to you?" _

_She rolled her eyes. "If you don't think it affects me, then you're not really giving me the credit I deserve, darling." The silken figure chastised. _

"_From what this says … I would say that you deserve no credit, period." He held the letter up. _

_The woman conceded, but then, after a moment, she turned narrow eyes to him. "Could be a trap …" She offered. _

"_For what?" _

"_You know, I'm sure Edith told you …" _

"_She told me a lot." _

"_Don't play dumb, darling, it doesn't suit you." _

"_Why? You seem to make a living off it from what I'm reading." _

_The woman looked indignant. "You know about the scheme with Sybbie. All it would take is a private bill, and you'd be disinherited, and they'd name Sybbie the Viscountess of Downton Abbey, and heir to Papa. Meaning that when she marries …" _

"_There would be a new Earl to share the Estate." He finished. _

"_When Papa dies his share goes to Sybbie as would my controlling interest when I die." _

"_You mean, Pop's controlling interest." _

"_He willed it to me, not you … but you know that don't you?" _

"_You'd never go against his wishes." _

"_No, but haven't I, already? If Matthew Crawley was so important to me, why would you be in this place?" _

_The youth flicked eyes toward the beautiful woman in front of him and held it for a long time after her comment._

"_You planning on killing me? Is that what you're saying?" He asked. _

_The woman shrugged again. "Are you surprised?" She frowned sympathetically. "I barely cared for you when you hadn't done anything, darling. Now, in ten years, you failed to save the child I actually wanted, you humiliated and insulted me when you could, and now that I'm getting married again, all my assets are tied up in some stranger I haven't seen or written too in eight years. Do you see how tiresome you've become?" She smiled sweetly with fake manners as she tore into him with lady like grace._

"_Maybe, but you're not having any more kids … what does it matter?" _

_The woman smirked. "You've seen my posters, the advertisements for the motor company. It's an illustration, true, but you know me, don't you? Even now, though you don't admit it, you still think I'm the most beautiful woman in the world. Then, there's the genetic reality to it all … Mama got pregnant in her mid-forties, a boy at that, so, my darling, anything is possible really." There was something flirty and suggestive of the way she looked at him. _

"_Who are you kidding? You think that keeps me up at night? We all know you live your life between your legs. The only difference with you is that you poke and prod waiting for some big romantic gesture and drama before you'd bite the sheet for someone. With that kinda psychotic foreplay, I'm guessing that the kids coming from any nuptial is a big fat goose egg of a number." There was an annoyed puff of smoke from his mouth as he glared at the woman. _

_The Great Lady scoffed. "Darling, for having so many bounties on your head, you really don't think … anything … through, do you?" She glared at him haughtily. _

"_I make it up as I go." _

"_Well, it might just make me a more appealing catch, if you're dead. It might make Sybbie the living and breathing picture of Princess Aurora to half the gentry, if you're dead. It might just make everyone happier you're dead. I'm mean, honestly, my love, do you think anyone even thinks of you anymore back home? Do you ponder why we sent you here, alone? Why no one came for you in New York after the Stock Market crashed and Grandmama lost all her money? You lived alone there for a year before Edith found you. Why do you think that is?" _

"_Cause you want me dead." _

"_Darling, that's very harsh to say … I feel that it would be much more app in believing that we don't want you dead, my love, as much as we simply just don't want you." There was the most pleasant smile on her pallid face that seemed almost encouraging. _

_The youth facetiously held up the letter. "I beg to differ." He shot back. _

"_Honestly …" She sighed in annoyance. "Do you really believe that someone at Downton Abbey sent that you?" She asked. "'Dear, shame of the family, I know we all loath you, and that most of us haven't seen or, to be honest, thought of you in years. But please, please, come back home to save our Estate from the blessed tyrant Lady Mary who is engaged to a shady character that I don't like.' Does that sound like a letter someone would write to you … you, of all people, my darling?" She shook her head, her eyes searching and gentle in observing him. _

_He leaned back in the chair, puffing his pipe thoughtfully. "Uncle Tom gave it to me himself when we were in South Texas." He said quietly. _

"_Oh, yes, Tom … bastion of morality." _

"_He is!" _

"_He is also my brother, and my best friend in the entire world, who would do anything for me. All I'd have to do is tell him to give this letter which, conveniently, looks like a special 'make-up' note to you from a regretful mama. Then, when you step on London Pavement, a squad of Bounty Hunters with submachine guns is waiting. And before you know it, you're doing the 'Thompson Jitter Bug'. Then, it's Long Live our Lady Sybil Branson, First Countess of Grantham." _

"_You said you didn't want me dead." _

"_Oh, darling, I simply don't want you. But, if I'm going to be terribly honest, I mean, the long-exiled Viscount of Downton Abbey returning home after eight years … that's big news that I certainly couldn't keep to myself, could I?" _

_For a long time, the youth looked into the fire. He didn't feel the weight, but the beautiful woman sat upon his knee, the glow reflected in her amber eyes. She seemed sad, contemplative, her hand slowly threading through his hair as she studied him with a maternal intimacy. She was a walking contrast to herself. Her words were cruel and biting, but her actions and facial expressions were sympathetic, longing, and her touch gentle with love. She was foe and savior wrapped in a tragic purgatory of being both and neither in the same breath. But he looked through her, muttering words under his breath in total focus and fixation on the flames. _

"_Bullshit …" He finally puffed out, running the pipe over his bottom lip thoughtfully. _

"_Darling?" _

"_Aunt Edith …" He inhaled through his nose. "When we were looking for Uncle Tom in Mexico, after he got kidnapped. She told me the same thing that is in the letter when we were curled up by the campfire. But she was personally pitching me to come back home to stop you. Why would Uncle Tom give me a letter, if Aunt Edith was just going to talk to me about it in private? Better yet, when do you reveal your plans to Aunt Edith, much less tell her anything that she'd believe?" He snorted. "Furthermore, Donk and you love Sybbie more than any of us, but you'd never willingly allow an outsider to overthrow the House of Grantham's control over the Estate and the County after near five-hundred years." He contradicted himself in yeomen and no-nonsense deduction._

"_It's not an ambush …" He finished quietly after a long pause of smoky silence. _

_The woman looked rather impressed with her child. But then, suddenly, there was a rancorous and cold expression that came over her face with a terrible cruelty. "Edith, huh?" She said thoughtfully. "Your mama, your savior …?" She mocked, suddenly rankled, grabbing his cotton Henley shirt in her grip. _

"_Leave it alone." He cut in with a warning, pushing her from his lap. _

_But the woman did not balk as she stumbled back to her feet. "Yes, the intrepid Lady Edith Pelham, Marchioness of Hexham. Most celebrated of young adult authors …" _

"_Knock it off." _

"_When no one else cared, there was always poor old Edith on your side, wasn't there?" _

"_I said …" _

"_She came to find you in New York when you were in dire straits in Grandmama's crumbling and abandoned Fifth Avenue Mansion after all that time. When you were on the run years later, she came all the way to Memphis Tennessee and got you out of that labor prison before you and your friends froze to death. And when you were surrounded by the Ku Klux Klan that attacked Grandmama's Plantation Mansion outside of New Orleans, it was Edith who brought the American FBI to save you and the friends that were still alive. And of course, … who could forget your great adventure in Mexico, when Tom got snatched by those bandits, and you sent Sybbie and Marigold back to San Antonio while our two unlikely heroes rode out to rescue him. I sure there was plenty of danger and hijinks in that Wild West adventure in the desert. But then … there was Fort Worth afterward, when you were escorting our family back to the airfields for their first leg of the trip back home …" _

"_Shut. Up." _

"_To think, after all you've been through, all the things she did for you. I do believe you loved her more than me. You thought of her as your mama, you held her in such high regard that no one could say a bad word about her in your presence … till she betrayed you." _

"_I'm not going to tell you again …" _

"_In Fort Worth, after such a frightening and exhilarating adventure in Mexico in which you, Tom, and she almost died so many times, when she thought she'd never see Marigold again. She realized, seeing that lovely angel in her element at that Oil Baron's Ball at the "Hotel Texas", so beautiful, so fine … she realized that she had to tell her …" _

" …"

"_Oh, Edith! She just had to tell Marigold that she wasn't our family's ward, that she was, in fact, her daughter. That now they could be together for real, that she wasn't some unwanted drudge or charity case that got taken in by some unfortunate and unhappy spinster. Now Marigold had a real family, a real name. And to think, it was on the very night that you were going to propose to her too, weren't you? In four years, when she was eighteen, you were going to marry her, love her forever … but because of Edith's secret that she's kept from both of you all these long years, your loving mama, you'll never be with the girl you love."_

"…"

"_Poor little orphan … no parents, no family, and now no Marigold." _

"_ENOUGH!" _

_His voice boomed like a clap of thunder in the echoing hall. Its reverberation shook the hanging chandelier of a small dusting of filth that fell sparingly from above, while the violence of his explosive anger continued to echo long into the dark emptiness of the winding corridors of the abandoned manor. The youth was on his feet, pipe cupped in his palm. His eyes were darker, feral, and filled with a wild look of hate. He positioned in an aggressive and violent manner, taking to his feet in a rage to confront his beloved tormentor. _

_But no one was there. _

_His chest heaved in a powerful rage as he looked at the empty spot that had never been occupied at all. He saw himself still completely alone in the same filth and stained-glass room that he had made camp in for half a week. When the last echoes of his voice finally found its way out of the halls, he found the same ponderous silence return like a thick and gasping blanket over everything. There was nothing at all, not even a footprint in the dusty tile. He shut his eyes as a drop of ectoplasm seeped from one of his wounds. He wiped it off with a thumb, before looking at the letter still in the same hand. _

_He didn't need to read the words anymore. He didn't need to hear the voices in his head. There was only one thing left to do, and it would be harder than anything he had ever done before. It would be required of him to do something that he had never been able to do. Not since he was but a boy, and even then, no matter the lectures, the soft conversations, it was not in his power to do what they had wanted of him even then. It didn't matter how much it had affected him over the years, or anyone else. To do what he knew he must, it would require a discipline of philosophy that was in complete antithesis of who and what he had become in all these years. _

_To do what was necessary, the boy, the youth, the wayfarer, simply had to let go. He had to let go of the young Southern Belle with drop curls and innocent eyes, the friends buried under a willow tree in New Orleans, the sights and sounds in the squalor of the deepest and darkest cell of a Mexican Criminal Asylum. He had to let go of the frozen hell of a Memphis labor prison, the year alone in New York, and the things done in rage that made him flee that city years later. He would have to let go of being cast out of his own home by a family that didn't want him back. He would have to let go of a venomous look a mother gave him when he wasn't fast enough. But most of all, he'd have to let go a baby girl that had defined him now for near a decade, most of his life. _

_The letter warped and crackled in the flames that it was tossed into. _

_For a long moment the youth watched the paper crumple and blacken in the coals. The fire was reflected in his eyes when he reached into his pocket and retrieved a single item. It was an ancient and worn steel band, medieval in age. It was topped with a simple design of a dragon sigil with amber eyes. The oldest heirloom of the House of Grantham had been passed down from Lord to his heir since before the family was even Earls of the County. It had survived through wars, civil and foreign. It had seen imprisonment in the Tower of London several times. Yet, the ring had endured upon the hand of both gentlemen and scoundrels, men of honor, and monsters of the worst kind. But through those centuries, both lean and joyous, its longest tenure started on the finger of a young American Heiress on a full moon night in New Orleans. And though Robert Crawley had given it, feeling much a pauper in it being the only engagement ring he could come up with, the love of his life wore it every day for half-a-century. She had refused it to Patrick Crawley much to the bitterness of his father and her mother-in-law. Then, she had "forgot" to tell Matthew Crawley of it, though he would've never dreamt of asking it from Lady Grantham's hand._

_But it was on a morning near the secret alcove at South Hampton, his last time on English soil, that Lady Grantham knelt to a young boy ready to board his mentor's clockwork vessel to a long and bitter exile. Being alone in the pre-dawn hours, from her finger, the kneeling woman took the simple, yet sacred, ring and placed it on her only boy's hand. She lamented in tears that it was all she could do for him. The ring, her most precious procession, was a reminder that no matter where he was or how low he felt, he would always be the heir of the House of Grantham … he would always be her baby boy. _

_It had survived so many terrible ordeals since Lady Cora had placed it on her boy's hand with a kiss. But now it resembled something else entirely. Fore, the ring, for so long, had meant the world to him, a reminder of who he was when it seemed that the worst of circumstances would have him forget. And knowing the story of how Lord Grantham, a bit of a wayfarer himself in his youth, had given it to the woman he loved as a symbol that was worth more than all the most lavished engagement rings in the world. The boy had a similar idea since he saw the girl that he loved for the first time in two years in that small cantina in Mexico. Though a year younger than him, she was no longer the young tweeny girl that he had saved in New Orleans, who clung to him, who had kissed him on a Southern Gothic Mansion's front porch. She was a prized beauty in the morning tide of her loveliness. And when she first saw him, and knew him, when he saw the love in her eyes, the joy and relief, he knew then that there was no one else in the world but her. He had no money, no great jewels of worth, and no means to get them. But he had his granny's ring, his family's ring. And for a girl with no name, no past, who felt that loneliness so strongly. A girl surrounded by riches and finery that she felt she had no right too, his love, the Ring of Grantham, would've been proof that she belonged somewhere in this world. _

_But now, even as he held it in his palm, he saw it as a symbol. Not as a grandmother's ring, or an heirloom of a long line of lineage going back to the "War of Roses", nor even a symbolic engagement promise. It remained a constant reminder that everything that he had dreamed of, visions of light and beauty that had kept him alive through danger and hardship was all a lie. It was a reminder that the one thing he wanted, that could've help him heal, move past everything, was taken from him. It wasn't that she did not love him, or that she had left him for another, it was the sheer impossibility that they could ever be together. _

_But the most painful thought remained that it was doomed from the very beginning, before either of them was ever born. That all those nights holding hands in the nursery, playing on the walls of Brancaster, and sitting by the creek side, her head on his shoulder as they watched the swans. It all didn't matter, like it never happened at all. All the longing, the nights spent looking to the Evening Star, thinking of one another, sending their love through it, was nothing but a great cosmic joke. Two women who hated one another, whose children fell in love during childhood, it seemed a fate so strong. Yet, the greater irony of those two women who hated one another, whose children fell in love, was that the women were full blooded sisters._

_It would be the one thing he would never be able to let go, no matter what he would do or accomplish in his life._

_There, alone in the silence, he fell to despair among the shadows of an abandoned ruin of long ago. The youth clutched the ring in a fist as he slowly sank back deep into the armchair, pressing his balled fist to his forehead to cover his face in heartbreak and sorrow. Out the windows, thick and tall fog rolled in from the coastline to bury the seaside manor house. While, somewhere in the distance of the long empty darkness beyond … _

_The thunder rolled._

* * *

_There once many men, glad-minded and gold-bright,  
adorned in gleaming, proud and wine-flushed, shone in war-tackle;  
There one could look upon treasure, upon silver, upon ornate jewelry,  
upon prosperity, upon possession, upon precious stones,  
upon the illustrious city of the broad realm._

_Days of misfortune arrived—blows fell broadly—  
death seized all those sword-stout men—their idol-fanes were laid waste —  
the city-steads perished. Their maintaining multitudes fell to the earth.  
For that the houses of red vaulting have drearied and shed their tiles,  
these roofs of ringed wood. This place has sunk into ruin, been broken  
into heaps,_

_**("The Ruin" – 9**__**th**__** Century Saxon Riddle)**_

* * *

**Rhode Island **

**1935**

They were already in a bad mood by lunchtime. It was dark, there wasn't a hallway corner or end table that didn't like a good toe, and there was dust everywhere. The moldy smell of sea salt mixed with thick clouds of filth created a constant strain under many men's chests. Everyone had a headache that was throbbing as their sinuses were clogged from a palatal manor house that was long neglected and forgotten from all walks of life. So, now, an hour later, the thugs that infested the old fairy castle to a world of tomorrow hated just about everything of the marble halls and polished tile of the gilded spectacle that seemed to have no rhyme, reason, or purpose. They even hated the portraits on the wall. The serious, realistic, and expressionist, paintings of people and romantic classical scenes of mythology and biblical record.

It was a question that awed them when they first saw it, knocking over the green and warped front gates, battering the abbey doors from Austria for an hour with a makeshift ram. Now, they asked the same question after a never-ending mess of head splitting sinus pain, sneezes, bloody noses, and startles at every turn and or blind spot checked. It was a question that was asked in awe, in daze, in frustration, in anger, and then flat out rage. A query that echoed with the shatter of a cobwebbed vase that was flung into a cavernous European room that had no furniture, no tables, no purpose but a large open space with suits of knights' armor, balconies, and renaissance master works of Greek Mythology on the walls. Before long the question of all questions seemed to pound away like a sledgehammer at their own sanity as they tripped with a hard slam and a cloud of dust over some sundry table for a third time …

"What the Mutha'fuck is the point of this goddamn place … FUCK!"

It was a popular and existential question that plagued most. It was big, a compound, a sprawling campus, part home of the future, part European palace of antiquity. Sometimes it was a museum, a room filled with nothing but art of the old world. Sometimes it was a tribute to the future, with gadgets and dioramas of a world of tomorrow that seemed just around the corner … fifty years ago. Then there were rooms that didn't host anything, tall and empty tile and chandelier mini ballrooms with odd gilded patterns on pearl white walls and checkered tile. Balconies with iron railings that looked down, but with no seeming way to get up to them. It was a confusing, frightening, and empty labyrinth whose design was all style and no substance.

The awful truth of the matter was that no one could really explain the point of Levinson Manor, fore the answer was baffling. And that was that the home was, in itself, the answer. Mr. Levinson and his daughter commissioned the home, mostly, because they could. It was dreamt of, conceived, and built with no purpose but one that felt more like a whim then prophecy. The house by the sea was the soul of arrogance, of decadence, and the narcissism of those who did not have wealth at the beginning of life and had too much of it by the end. Most people who felt a touch of prophecy chase it for most of their life, but it was the rare few who had the means and immaturity to build a temple to this supposed destiny. Therefore, years, and millions of dollars spent on a project of mythic proportions seemed empty when a girl of twelve, who demanded it, only lived five years in its marble halls. In the end, when Cora Levinson was named Viscountess of Downton Abbey, there was nothing for it.

Once more, a girl of exceeding beauty and wealth had gotten what she always wanted, and then left everything behind, including her fairy palace. This masterpiece of art and architecture suddenly became disposable like most of what was bought at expense and cast aside as cheap when the amusement ran out by this brand-new generation of a self-made upper class. The beastly palace cost a fortune, nearly a shareholder's entire year's profit just to maintain. For a long time, it was but a novelty that was sparsely bothered, and only cleaned up as a fairground, a storybook castle, for lovely aristocratic granddaughters who would come to visit. They'd be given grand balls by all of Newport and New York society upon milestone teenage birthdays that they would remember forever as if they were princesses in fairyland. But in the long stretches of times, it was not maintained at all, a large and exceedingly expensive tax write off. And when the stock market fell, no one noticed, or cared, fore no one had stepped foot inside the manor for many long years before even then.

So, the question of what the point of Levinson Manor was could not be fully answered, unless one gave up their own understanding of substance and realistic practicality in order to see the world in a bubble of elitist, esoteric, post-modern concepts of art and symbolism. It was something that neither thug nor bounty hunter could wrap their head around. Yet, Cora Levinson's own heir and grandson, who could understand it, having long known his mother and adopted sister's remarkable sense of self-importance, found the whole business an incredible waste of time. To him, the home on the hill was an insurmountable exercise in frivolous use of wealth to make a statement that a simple 'who cares what those knickerbocker hags think' seem much more fitting a response than to build this fairy palace of sheer excess. As far as proving points were concerned to the young adventurer, Levinson Manor would always hold a picture in the dictionary under the world "overkill".

It was a word that would cross his mind but once this day, and that would be continuously.

Thugs were tossing over table, observing paintings, tugging on flasks, and snorting mucus from their nose onto the ragged plush carpets, when they paused. Just in time, a figure in a beaten leather peacoat of mahogany and tall motorcycle boots appeared at a terrific lick unto the corridor from around a corner. He slid perfectly to a stop as a baker's dozen of mostly Italian and Sicilian eyes darted up from their destructive man hunt to see the figure in multicultural rags halt on a dime. There was a silence that was as deafening as a foghorn. Every one of them eyed the fleeing raven-haired figure. With two steps backward, the youth cleared his throat and nodded a casual greeting at the frozen gangsters.

"Nope!"

The moment George Crawley turned and began sprinting back the way he came, there was an explosion of movement. A dozen thugs with billy clubs stopped all of what they were doing. Then, after long frozen beat of confusion, they all began giving chase with angry cries and shouts. Their feet thundered down the echoing corridor as they charged after the fleeing figure with a beautiful Worth wedding gown slung tightly against his lower back.

_("Ballroom of Romance" – Celtic Woman)_

His feet kicked up clouds of dust as he fled right through the pitch black. It would seem a perilous journey for those who had not been trained by one of the greatest martial arts masters for three years in New York City, as well as having spent a year in the endless darkness of Saltillo. George purposely played chicken with end tables and statues, allowing the mob of angry gangsters to follow the sound of his echoing feet. As he smoothly avoided obstacles, his feints and deceptions were rewarded by the sound of angry cries of surprise as figures piled the narrow corridor when someone fell over a table or unintentionally tackled statue or bust. He wouldn't say that he had any 'homefield advantage' beyond having traversed these halls for a week now, looking for a treasure that had a value that was three times the whole worth of Grantham County and Downton Abbey itself.

As he exited the mouth of the corridor, he made a rolling stop to see that the smooth talker and matchstick man were making tracks and were in range. Their faces were a mask of rage and humiliation after being so thoroughly tricked by the young adventurer. One might have said that most people would've died from asphyxiation from such a heavy gaslighting. Though slowed to off speed, the youth was quick of both body and mind, and being his mother's son, inheriting her absolute athletic prowess, the youth quickly gave a 360-degree spin in evasion of the two other gangsters. Quick and smooth as White Lightning, the youth's slick move caused a five-way collision between smooth talker, matchstick man, and the remaining thugs that had made it out of the 'briar patch' of unseen hall decorations. They fell in a heavy cloud of cussing and angry jerking limbs. George stumbled out of the spin, using both his hands to brace his balance on the floor, before using the push off to rebuild momentum as he sprang away.

"Come'here, come'here, ya slippery Limey fuck!" A fitful voice came down the hall by unseen and oncoming reinforcements.

He took the opposite way from the 'Princess Tower' back to the grand staircase near the front of the manor. On his way, he narrowly escaped a leaping surprise tackle, taking a sharp corner turn, causing a slide tackling figure to give a flying graze of his back shoulders before hurling down an adjacent hall to a crash of decorations. The teen paused only a moment when he saw a breakaway group sprinting down the narrow path right in front of him. Quickly, seemingly cornered, the youth shouldered right through a door with a smash. The entrance was revealed to be a darkened staircase with a soft dimness of an opening room in the distance. The youth descended the stairs quickly as the sound of dozens of shoes whose number was growing were catching up in haste. At the edge of the stairs was an open cove of stone that was carpeted in blue with woven golden fleur-de-lis. At the end of the cove was a vast opening held back by a rusty iron bar barrier. There wasn't a hesitation, not even a second of doubt, when the youth accelerated to the iron railing.

There was a stunt like front flip of acrobatics to build momentum mid-air as the youth leapt up and off the railing, somersaulting into the vast chasm of a large room filled with paintings of mythology and suits of knights' armor. With an aggressive and sharp jangle of crystal, the shadowed silhouette of a large chandelier swung back and forth with massive sounds of swirling stale air as George Crawley held onto it, dangling over the checkered tile room. Immediately, he jerked and ducked his head as his dangling and swinging was harassed by cussing men in zoot suits who chucked loose items and their clubs at him in a hail of debris when he drifted in range.

He put more and more weight on the chandelier till he felt, heard, and knew that it was giving way. Then, moments before the collapse, the youth let go. With a tuck and roll, he landed on the checkered floor and somersaulted to his feet, dashing toward one of three exit doors on the same side of the expansive room. The poignancy of the sharp and unpleasant sound of the chandelier crashing aground was highlighted by the clear and visible taunting middle finger that the teenager shot at the gangsters above while he exited the room, kicking the door open from behind him.

The lead thug, holding his side, sweat pouring down his face, breathed heavily in rageful frustration, slapping his feathered fedora on his knee. "Goddamn, Erol Flynn, mutha'fucka …" He panted with a shake of his head in disbelief at the swashbuckling feat he just saw. "Come on, ya mooks!" the out of shape gangster wheezed, motioning the rest with his hat to follow him to double back.

**FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM!**

The adventurer exited the art gallery to a violent tremor that knocked him off balance. It was getting bad down there, and he knew that screwing around in his Granny's old room wasn't ideal. There was a part of him that believed that if he had just killed them, then he wouldn't have been in this position. But then he thought back to Mexico, the look on Sybbie's face when he had taken on those Apaches at the cantina. Their 'chief' might have stuck his hand up his Aunt Edith's skirt, forcefully stroked the silk material between her legs. But he was still haunted by his best friend's look when George pinned a knife through the offender's hand. He had used him as a human shield as he shot his drunk bandit buddies on the stage and opposite tables and blew away a half dressed pistolero over the railing of the upstairs balcony before he could throw down on him with a shotgun. He had saved their Aunt Edith, Sybbie, Marigold, and Uncle Tom from a terrible fate when they had stupidly crossed the border to follow him. Yet, the beautiful young woman, who he hadn't seen in five years, looked at this teenage fighter in fear, this killer of men who was nothing like the boy who used to take them to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade every year in New York before he fled the city. In those memories, George had become 'gun shy' of taking lives that seemed, till that night, a part of his life since he left New York. But, now, he only saw Sybbie's fallen and frightened face. After eight years, George Crawley was tired of death. And if the adventurer could avoid it, he would …

Though it didn't seem possible today.

When the tremor died down, he was on his feet, and moving to the one place that he didn't want or plan to be. He had to shave time off or he wasn't going to make it. He had been in more heavily guarded places than this and had gone unseen. But now that he was on a time limit and the entire man hunt was onto him, he was going to have to brute force it. His timetable moving up exponentially if he was going to make his escape before the "demolition". Instead of stealthily moving down another corridor. The adventurer charged for an occupied staircase where a new set of mobsters were still trying to get their bearing.

The man in regular fedora startled, making a wild haymaker swing with a black painted policemen's club. George ducked the first swing which whipped the air with a wicked slice. At the second swing, the youth took a fighting stance and evasively leaned back, letting it whiff across him and crack loudly against the aged painted wall. Now over extended, the young man pinned the gangster's baton arm. With a worn boot toe, he jammed the back of the thug's knee sending him kneeling on the uneven access stairs. Grabbing a handful of black oil slicked hair, the youth gave the man three forceful slams against the wall by the head till he slumped. George snatched the police baton from his hand, before giving him a kick down the stairs. Three of the five gangsters were able to avoid their falling friend, though hard pressed as a pile of broken bones and painful growls lay at the foot of the steps. The staggered figure in front of George gave a wild and blind defensive swing at the youth who held his baton upside down against his forearm. He caught the fist with an absorbing clack of wood, redirecting his force and countering with a right cross and a heel kick to the diaphragm that sent another figure tumbling. This time the remaining figures avoided their comrade and the two gangsters attacked, one with a club, the other with a snub nose revolver in the back of the onslaught.

George pressed the assault close, as close as possible to avoid giving the firearm wielding foe a clean shot. There was a tooth gritting clack of baton and club meeting in cross parry. The youth's padded fingerless gauntlets absorbed the vibration, something that the gangster did not have. The man made a painful cry at the bone grinding reverberation from the force of the collision shooting through his hand. It was enough for the young adventurer to strike the thug across the face with a backhand swing. Dazed from the baton strike, the youth shielded himself behind the thug's shoulder and swiped the revolver out of his other adversary's hand with a metallic clank of wood on iron, sending the firearm flying over the stair railing. Grabbing the club from the dazed mobster's hand he crossed baton and club into a scissor position across the thug's throat. Like a puppet being controlled through strings, George slammed the thug headfirst into the stair wall, before shifting him to the other side, twisting him over the railing where he landed hard on the revolver that caused something to painfully explode in his lower stomach. There was only a flickered hesitation in the sudden lone gangster who stood unarmed against the very last master of the lost art of Baritsu. The youth gave a tight twirling spin of both baton and club with expert handling of flashing hands, daring the last combatant to make the first move. A simple jab from the mobster was parried and resulted in the thunk of hard wood smacking against skull and rib. After a blind haymaker was caught and the cause of a hyper extended arm, the last was added onto the pile of writhing thugs with a shattered elbow.

Having won the descent, the figure vaulted over the pig pile of broken and shattered limbs five deep. As he turned to leave, he leapt against the wall and threw the club at a crippled figure with snub nose revolver who still had enough pain tolerance to try and get a shot off. Instead, he got a tight spinning missile to the face that sent him hurtling into a black oblivion. Kicking away the revolver under broom closet door, the figure leapt over the fallen thug and used a short cut maid's access door through an old cleaning chemical's closet and out into a pitch-black hallway. There, he was two feet from a narrow corridor of six thugs that startled at the surprise and forceful barging into the once dead silent hallway.

Before they could even react, the youth already had cracked one of the gangsters across the head, sending him spinning mid-air before smashing an end table with the stone bust of Nike upon it. George left a literal trail of dust behind him as he began running once more down a dark hallway. In pursuit was now fully enraged mobsters that hadn't signed up for sinus infections, creepy Rhode Island manor houses, and getting pummeled by a folk hero. They cursed and sprinted on hundred dollars' worth of shoes not made to chase down adventurers with old wedding dresses rolled on their backs. The youth turned and flung the cracked baton at the feet of his lead pursuer, causing the man's legs to get tangled in the piece of wood and sending him down in a cloud of dust like a heavy flour bag. The youth didn't turn back to watch another pile up as he turned the corner.

But, this time, there was no light. George had reached the manor's foyer overlook. But there was no view from the gallery down upon the great hall of the old marble and gilded home. A large and thick velvet curtain of crimson was hung heavily over the railing, blocking not just the view but all light. But that didn't stop the hunted figure from sprinting for the staircase that led to the trident configured grand staircase of plush crimson carpet with golden bordering that lay over white marble. But before he could get to it, he slid to a halt. There, in overwhelming force, came the contingent that he thought he had escaped with his acrobatics at the art gallery. They were all red faced, sweating, and wild eyed. The youth quickly changed directions, beginning to head back the way he came. But when he did, George saw the shadowed silhouettes of the other party that he had just eluded. He slid to a stop, hitting the brakes with the help of both his hands on the ground. By instinct, he shifted gears to flee again, but he saw the other group advancing. In that moment, it did not escape his notice that he looked the very image of a trapped animal. He teased and feigned both sides, drawing them closer. In a flash of hyper awareness, he knew there was only one way out of the situation.

"PICKLE!"

The spirited shout from the thoroughly worn out and overweight gangster of a baseball and stickball term was as good as a cavalry bugler blowing the charge. Then, both parties from either side of the gallery overlook gave cry and a charge at the single figure in between. However, at the last moment, the youth hit the deck and covered his head. The eleventh hour move in the darkness caused what one could only describe as a headlong collision of the most epic proportions. Thugs, gangsters, and other assorted street mercenaries bought by an old Ottoman noblewoman, collided violently, slamming into one another at full speed. Bodies flew everywhere or caved at the center of the overlook in a mountain of flailing and punching limbs that viciously and ill-temperedly attacked everyone in their reach. At that moment it did not matter who they were hitting, they had enough of this house and this situation. They attacked and struggled as their own tempers flared out of control in this terrible place.

Over foul words uttered in English, Italian, and tongues not understandable, a lone figure clawed his way out from underneath the pile with a cough and wheeze. Covered in dust, George Crawley pushed past the absolute melee. Yet, instead of moving past them, seeing more figures rushing up the stairs from the ground floor, the youth leapt up onto the railing and then jumped off, grabbing onto the velvet curtain.

From the grand hall of Levinson Manor over a dozen mercenaries with a much more professional, hardened, and disciplined look frowned at the noises they heard from upstairs. They stood in stalwart sentry, trusted to guard the exits. They'd allow the 'street trash' to smoke the "Wolf's Head' out and force him to fight his way against former Pinkertons and Soldiers of Fortune being paid by the King of Iran himself as a gift to his aunt, the former Princess. They almost found it comic to see the stretching, puffing, and shuffling velvet of the drawn curtain that accompanied the mass shouting and cursing. They were reminded of the Keystone Cops from the "Flickers" of their youth.

"Ho shit!"

But the smirks of amusement on their scared and hardened faces faded quickly when metallic snaps and the shocked and concerned voice of George Crawley heralded the entire heavy curtain giving way. In a slow and inescapable torrent that fell forward, its shadow darkening the bright sunrays that streamed through the smashed open abbey doors and tall windows at the main entrance of the manor. Like a great tidal wave of fabric, the crimson and gold velvet crushed over most of the great hall and foyer in a loud rush of air and dust, sweeping mercenaries under its destructive wake before they could even think about running from it. George had swung from the material in the hopes of climbing down behind it and slipping out. But after fifteen years, the railing couldn't take the weight and snapped. He looked quite the wiped-out surfer as he felt himself tumble and slide over the wave of dusty and filth covered curtain a story down to the very descent of the massive and ornate staircases at the end of the mighty grand hall of the manor house.

He barely had time to get his bearings before he heard voices calling out. Putting his hand up to shield the bright sun and coughing on the mixture of the fresh sea air that invaded lungs that had been breathing dust and neglect for a week, he saw that a squad of mercenaries had escaped the reach of the velvet curtain. Armed with Submachine Guns, they pointed out the dazed figure on a bed of red crushed velvet looking around wildly at tall and wiggling lumps under the crimson material. The trapped figures blindly crawling and staggering under the heavy velvet shielded the young adventurer from their aim. Quickly lowering his goggles, the youth rolled and scrambled away.

**RATATATATAT!**

Three Tommy Guns opened fire in his wake, indiscriminately knocking down fellow hired guns, riddling them with bullets. With a flat roll, the youth slipped under the massive curtain and began to crawl on his stomach, disappearing into obscurity in a dark and dusty abyss that was scored by angry, frightened, and strained noises from other trapped souls trying to find their way out. Meanwhile, in the chaos, the gunmen that were firing without hinder, found that it was not without consequences. From underneath, their fellow mercenaries mobbed them in mass out of sheer survival. They, like the mobsters, quickly turned on each other. They fired their guns point blank into one another. Or otherwise, like wraiths, the curtain clad figures draped and dragged their comrades to the floor, fighting and rolling around in feral and animalistic chaos.

However, from the scrum and bloody firefight only one figure ducked out from underneath the curtain. With a panting wheeze, desperate for fresh air, George Crawley lifted his dusty goggles to his forehead and basked in the naked sunlight after a week trapped in the graveyard of an undreamt Tomorrowland. Yet, he hardly had time to enjoy a moment's reprieve before he startled. He breathed in frustration and alarm as he turned and quickly sped across the seal at the front of the home. His thunderous claps of boot soles mingled with the sound of gunfire and two distinct brawls his deceptions and quick thinking had started amongst greedy criminals of every walk of life.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" He swore as a collection of silhouettes sprinted in chase, their shadows tall and long with the sun at their backs.

"There he goes, there he goes, there he goes!"

A gangster in solid grey suit was wheeling his fedora in hand in encouragement as he pointed out the fleeing figure. One by one, then two and three abreast, tall men ran through the main entrance. They wore snappy and highly tailored suits. But they were bearded, copper skinned, and had fierce dark eyes. Upon their head were black silken turbans with adornments of the highest honors in the Shia Islamic traditions. In their hands were not clubs, snub nose pistols, or even submachine guns. Instead they carried long and curved blades adorn each with symbols of old noble families of the ancient Islamic Caliphate. They, in spirit, represented the Old Sultan's Janissaries in their height, savageness, and use of the ornate blades of tradition. But they were, in reality, men loyal to the Mullahs of Iran.

Long ago, a once bejeweled Persian beauty, dark hearted and bitter in grieving, turned to the religious leaders of her brother's kingdom, begging for Allah's vengeance. In exchange for much, it was decided from that day forward that Princess Fawzia Fuad Pamuk would be granted vengeance for her son's death. And it was on the Ramadan of 1921, that it was decreed by the Mullahs of Iran and in every Shia Mosque that a Fatawa would be called down upon the last heir of the House of Grantham. Even as he lay in his shared crib with the daughter of a Chauffeur and Great Lady, Allah would call for vengeance upon him. At first, many other religious leaders of the many scattered and colonial occupied Arab Kingdoms doubted such a bombastic claim. They would sooner foment all out rebellion than sanction such an action against a baby, much less an heir to the British Aristocracy. But when the word of Matthew Crawley's death on the day of his son's birth spread, they had no choice but claim it a sign of Allah that he was against the House of Grantham, and that punishment to the murderer and harlot Lady Mary Crawley was a divine cause. Since then, for fifteen years, it was the policy of all true followers of the Prophet's word that for the life of Kamal Pamuk, that George Crawley must die in order to punish Lady Mary for her sinful beauty and temptations used to defile a beloved son.

Thus, the death of the Viscount of Downton Abbey was not revenge, but a bought and paid for Islamic religious imperative.

The ground floor corridors were much wider. The atmosphere was much more spacious and filled with light as often the rooms were both the most used daily and to show off during mass swaths of company. The halls were marble white with gilded vine work that still glimmered, even a half a century later, from the tall and high windows that shined sunbeams down upon the walkways. Overhead were sloping sunroofs with hanging ivy through broken panes, like spilling entrails, which lined the white halls with sunray spotlights. Behind the youth, angry religious fanatics with tall and thick swords gave chase, some chanting prayers. For them this was a holy cause, and one that had been a long time coming.

They had spent half of George Crawley's life trying to kill him. They had nearly poisoned him to death when he was a small boy during the first royal visit to Downton, their man imbedded in the royal party. Yet, the boy survived, and the consequence was merely that, out of fear, neither nurse nor nanny would risk attending to the House of Grantham as long as George Crawley drew breath. There had been plenty of other times in which the Pamuk Princess had come close, but could never quite finish the job, including locking the boy in the deepest and darkest cell of an ancient criminal asylum and throwing away the key. Yet, a year later, the hardened youth escaped. They had tried luring him into battle by hiring Mexican Mercenaries, former revolutionaries who rode with Pancho Villa, to kidnap Sybbie Branson, though her father sacrificed himself to protect his little girl. Yet, alas, the boy and his Lady Aunt had outwitted the mercenaries and rescued Tom. Then, George had killed the most devoted man of the Pamuk household in a gunfighter's duel on the main street of Dejalo at the end of the adventure. Now, after losing another long-devoted servant to George Crawley's Apache Bowie knife in a fight at the Fort Worth Stockyards, the old Princess was desperate to see justice be done upon the House of Grantham. She cursed its silken whore for the wrongs she had done to her beloved boy. But no matter how hard she tried; she could not rid the world of the pale harlot's son. So now came the deluge, the storm, everything she could find she threw at the youth. An army of borrowed gangsters from New York, top tier urban mercenaries, men from her nephew's own household, and even the greatest swords of the Mullahs.

Princess Fawzia Pamuk had declared that in the name of Kamal Pamuk, her only child, that this day she would finally put an end to George "The Comet" Crawley.

This was far from lost to the young adventurer as he burst into the main drawing room of Levinson Manor. The expansive space was much more like a moderate convention room, with several collections of furniture around three large fireplaces. The tall ceilings were turquoise colored with golden designs that twisted down and wrapped around columns that stood randomly throughout the large spacious room. It had the feeling of a French or Italian library or study from the Enlightenment or perhaps Versailles itself. All around were brown and grey rotted leaves that covered the designs colored into the beige and green tile. They were decades old corpses of many different autumns that had spilled forth from checkered medieval windows decorated with the odd square of stained glass. At the open sills were hills of old leaves that had accumulated over the years, the winter winds blowing them inside at a scattering year after year.

The youth had only time to scan the room for only a moment, before he rolled evasively from a bejeweled scimitar that hacked a sixteenth century Viennese chair clean in half. Moving fluidly from somersault to his feet the youth vaulted over an end table between sofa and love seat, giving himself momentary guard at the flanks by the v-shaped arrangement of the decor of the drawing room. In the process he knocked over a silver frame of two women, one a middle-aged southern belle with flaming red hair, and the other was a beaming teenage beauty in silk and lace. In the younger's arms was a small baby girl with lace cap, tiny baptismal dress, and amber eyes that had a red tint. But the picture of three generations of Levinson women was destroyed forever by the flickered curved blade of the extremist that cleaved it to pieces along with the Milanese end table from the eighteenth century.

George sprang to the center and larger fireplace. There upon the mantle, there was a picture of a dashing and rather handsome man in a British officer's uniform. He was the picture of gentlemanly dignity and soldier's gallantry. On the other side of the mantle was the picture of the same young man, some decade and a half later. Now he was in Edwardian tails, his tight English curls were feathered as he kept a serious face while sitting in chair. On either side of him were young tweeny girls. One tall, fair, with deep amber eyes. She had long glossy drop curls supported by a large white bow. On the man's other shoulder was a young blonde tween in brown and white dress. She was not as physically elegant or naturally beautiful as her sister. Her eyes betrayed an unsure and quiet anxiety as she tried to hide under an Easter bonnet tied with a golden ribbon. Finally, upon the man's knee was a young girl of eight or nine. She was overly a match for her eldest sister in terms of beauty, even for one so young. She had doe cerulean eye that seemed to glow even in black and beige. She had long and thick raven curls that spilled down the back of her matching lace dress to her eldest sister. But there was not anxiety on her face, nor a self-important look of confidence either. Instead there was only joy, love, and kindness. She smiled much like her mother, while her papa and sisters remained stoic. Even at a young age, the lovely and angelic Lady Sybil Crawley was born to stand out.

Yet, both pictures clattered and shattered in frame as their young heir ripped the item that both pictures were on either side of from the mantle. There was a sharp ring of steel upon steel, causing the Shia to halt in a moment of hesitation. From its scabbard, the young adventurer drew forth a British Officer's saber. There were still splotches of rust on the blade, but they found it rather clean after fifty years, the blade's edge rather sharp without blunt. It seemed that, needing more to take his mind off many things in the night rather than reading old, forbidden, harlequin novels hidden under his Granny's mattress and her most personal teenage diaries. The youth had taken to cleaning and sharpening Lord Grantham's old saber, left as some inside joke that only Robert and Cora understood, as well as to impress visitors with the Grantham name and prestige during the summer seasons in Newport.

The extremists began to stir, carefully advancing, keeping a wary eye on the figure who dumped sheath and wedding gown on a couch and began twirling the saber in a lifetime's expertise. They had heard stories of George Crawley's prowess, but for now, that was all they were. Expunging all doubt and replacing it with a fundamentalist's absolute fervor, a group of swords probed the myths and rumors, charging forth. The youth engaged, holding his ground.

He fought the men; the sound of clashing metal rang in echoing cries which reverberated through the tall pale corridors. It was like a dance, the youth twisting and sidestepping, parrying and countering two, three, swords at once. He blocked one swing, to duck another, then continue to press his fight with the first. He stonewalled the second with a cross parry, and then let slip a flurry of sharp exchanges with two at a time, all the while keeping an eye on the others circling for an opening. His footwork was learned, plotting, and strategic. Leaves fluttered, crunched, and rustled as the five men moved to the rattle and snap of clashing metal. Till finally, the youth took three scimitars against his saber blade.

The men put forth all their power while the rattling swords had ground together in a locked struggle. But in the end, while they had their extremist devotion, the second and third sons of nobility lacked the sheer aggression, fire, and dark memories of George Crawley. It was a demon's madness that fueled his strength with a bottomless pit of shame, rage, and hatred for all that had befallen his life since the day he was born. With a snarling growl, he put forth all his strength and tossed the men backward. One of the Shia slipped on leaves and fell to the ground. The others staggered heavily, before regaining their feet.

Again, those not engaged went at the youth, the three clashing in a swift back and forth with curved Islamic blade sweeping like a scythe against the straight edged and deliberate fencing of the saber. But in the end, as with most sword fights, it was the tiniest mistake that took a life. The extremist had over-lunged, and George, in one slick disarmament, took the scimitar from the fanatic's hand in a twirling and twisting flowing motion. Blood splattered when Robert Crawley's saber slipped through the Muslim's neck and out the other side.

As the man fell, the other swordsmen halted, a look of indignation and rage darkened their gaze. they watched as George, now wielding duel swords, began to twirl and flip them in expertise, waiting, taunting them with the smooth showmanship. What had just happened was as good as blasphemy. Holy and righteous blood of Allah's chosen few had been spilt by an infidel, an enemy of Islam's hand. Their hearts were ablaze in fervor as they slowly created a ring around the youth, who twisted and turned, flipping and twirling saber and scimitar, holding his blades forth in point to measure and bar their advance as they slowly closed.

Yet, they hesitated from moving in, for a deep and chilling cold was reflected in the young man's glowing blue eyes. A lifetime of being hunted for the youthful sin of a mother many years before his birth burned hatefully in his heart. Neither had he so idly forgotten the kidnapping and tormenting of his uncle in Mexico, nor the original plans to take Sybbie as captive to enslave and violate. And never shall he ever unsee, unhear, or forget the madness and horror in the echoing halls of stone in which he had been cast into the deepest, darkest, dungeon by the malice of their religious dogma. Even now that same madness and terror of the endless darkness had taken hold of him in his vengeful musings of all the evils that had been dealt by one old woman's call for vengeance in the name of a foul seducer and violator of young aristocratic women. There burst forth a white, almost translucent, flame that burned within with a power and hatred that was terrifying to behold.

Saber met scimitar, and then scimitar met scimitar in a moving and lightning fast display as four of the greatest swordsmen of the Islamic world went after the great enemy who proved more their equal. Their attack was relentless, but Crawley's defense was impenetrable. He swatted and caught curved blades, twisting back to parry away blows from behind as if he had eyes upon the back of his head. The circle kept discipline, not breaking as they moved across the leaf strewn drawing room. But, somehow, as the fight raged, they found that they were quickly shifting to defense as the youth went after them aggressively. Their morale began to fall when their oldest member of their sacred order's swing was ducked and the holy blade of their fallen brother ran across his gut, opening his bowels upon the leafy floor.

The adventurer held his ground, his twirling and twisting blades ringing and glancing off their desperate and vengeful assault renewed. Their captain's blade got caught in a sleek twisting mirage before the sound of something snapping exploded painfully in his nose. Blood flowed from catching an angled jab of a British Officer's saber's handguard. He staggered away, holding his nose. Meanwhile, his companions, of those who remained, fought bitterly. But they were met with a highly studied and experienced swordsman of a more advanced and ancient skill lost to time. A blow parried was then opened for an extremist's neck to be caught betwixt straight saber and curved blade. He was cut through beard, skin, muscle, and sinew, right down to the bone. The last of the captain's Islamic brotherhood was suddenly, fully, burdened with the wrath of George Crawley's counterattack. He demon possessed figure was no longer on defense. In a blur of flashing metal, the back of the curved blade severed the suited man's hamstring. He fell to the knee, but before he could say his peace, whether to beg or defy, a saber slashed his throat.

Then, there was one.

The Islamic Captain let the blood run freely over his bristled black mustache and down his beard. He stood at full height, having been leaning on his scimitar. He looked over his fallen comrades, before turning to the young man that was twirling the swords, repositioning himself. Something cold and dreaded fell down the man's spine. It had been a personal jihad of the former Persian Prince. He had hated his cousin, so effete, so soft, and sinful to the offense of Allah himself. But he had loved his aunt, and though she herself was more European than a faithful Muslim, corrupted by the Westernized Ottoman Imperial court of the last Sultans. Yet, when their family was offended, humiliated in such a terrible way, he was the first to take on the burdens of honor. But the Captain saw now that it would be in vein, fore there was something dark and ominous about the youthful figure that was stalked by the cold hands of death. He perceived that a great doom was placed upon George Crawley. And in these fey ponderings, his family's plight became as clear as the twilight upon the evening hours. The Prince saw in that opulent ruin that it was not by any weapon of craft that the Mullah's of the Islamic world possessed which would fell this master of doom. Yet, the fate that Allah did so assign to the captain was not plotted for no purpose. And for his glory, he would martyr himself at the feet of their great enemy.

"Allahu Ackbar!"

The greatest of the Mullahs' captains charged forth. But in the figure's outrage, he took a high strike downward, which was met at its apex by a cross blocking saber. Before he could ever recoil, a curved holy blade was plunged deep into the Persian's bowels. His eyes were hollow in shock, as the youth looked coldly at a once exalted young prince. The Adventurer glared with a deep black hate, before driving the curved Muslim blade deeper into the fanatic's stomach. In a moment of perilous cruelty, the youth drove the sword up to the man's chest inch by inch. In the youth was the sight of completion of an arc that could only be appreciated by one who had been hunted by men such as this since he was born. It was such a closure which could only be felt by one who's strength had grown steadily over the years that it had become measured so mightily that even the hunters could not stand against him. Finally, when the captain stopped shaking, his eyes darkened, the youth let go of the hilt and let the last of the sacred Islamic order fall. The prince lay limply, a Saracen sword still impaled through him.

Then, there were none.

There, for a moment, was the shadow of madness and bloodlust of battle upon the young man. In him was a powerful hatred that was savage and black as tar. For a time, he had eyes like his captain, his tutor, and his master in the way of the blade. He was a terror of a man, who lived in the endless dark of the many leagues below the waves, in his clockwork vessel. Mad, tyrannical, remorseless, and a mind beyond any that walked the earth, the Sikh was a villain of old, cruel, and cunning. A prince of a kingdom long ago, just and good, till it fell to betrayal and The East India Trading Company. For neigh over a century he haunted the waterways, ever a black hearted corsair that sought the greatest of treasures. Though his desires went beyond gold, silver, gem, and jewel. He alone coveted technology, science, and the future. And through his great sorrow, his bouts of madness, there was only one of whom he taught of the world, of his prejudices and praise, lore of the lost antiquity that was even beyond that to the forgotten ages of man. But, above all, he instructed his only apprentice in the many mysteries of the ancient disciplines of the sword from every corner of the known and unknown world.

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The earthquake and explosive roar from below were deep and violent, creating a wave of bass that shook in his chest with a cavernous vibration like it was the top of a cathedral ceiling. There was something sobering, almost divine in its intervention in the young adventurer's heart which was captured in a spell of darkness. With sobering breaths, he felt a wave of regret overcome him at the mess that was about his boots. The dead Islamists lay strewn, butchered, and horrible to look upon, their lifeblood mixed in drifts of leaves and stained the old tile, trickling through the trenches between. Cleaning the blade on an end tablecloth, the youth sheathed the saber and slung the rolled Worth wedding dress against his back once more.

But when he crouched to retrieve the black and white picture of Lord Grantham and his little girls, he found the frame smashed, the picture invaded by a rolling river of fresh blood. He gave a steady breath, with heaving chest, as he looked upon the last blasphemy, the defiling of one last family memory through violence that had followed him all his life. For a beat, he reached down to touch it, to save his family's history, but he stopped himself, retrieving the groping hand to cover his eyes in a shameful sigh. It had not been the fight or the enemy that had broken the photograph of his family in happier days. In his anger, in his aggression, he had destroyed it. His blood lust for vengeance against a lifetime of fear, of having to leave his rightful name, his father's name, behind when he stepped onto Columbia's shores.

George Crawley had been associated with daring, gallantry, fear, and wonder. But of the name, it had never been associated with him. He had been the nameless rogue, the bold rover, and wayfaring stranger for so long in the eyes of those who gave him not a second glance as he passed them on the street or country road. He was a figure who had no name, wandering many a wood, plain, and mountain without a home to call his own. His purpose, his history, and his identity had been taken from him long ago, hidden away for his own safety or in shame of all that he wasn't one Christmas morning. But when he had finally stopped running, held his ground, boldly proclaiming himself in the silver and blue of Grantham, he found only bloody butchery and the ruin of what would've been held dear to the last, and all of it from his own hand and no others.

So long now had the name George Crawley been put aside, and so much had there been pain and doubt that came from it, that even his own name felt more a curse placed upon a child long ago. And about him did he see the working of such a terrible doom. This palace of marble and gold, which was foolhardy in building, but still remained a work of sheer beauty and wonder, even at its bitterest end, was forever desecrated to see blood spilled in its fair halls. Not even its ruin and surrender to the ravages of time had it suffered such the greatest of indignities. And there was shame in the quiet sorrow of the figure who stood to full height, taking saber in hand when he left in flight to the sound of feet and cries rushing down the hall. Yet, even as George sprang away, the photograph he mourned was overtaken ...

While the fair figure of the beautiful Lady Mary Josephine Crawley disappeared, drowned anew in a river of blood.


	5. Quick as Dreams

There was a time and place that was fixed in the ether of a location forever. The atmosphere, the moment of shock and elations of surprise that overtook everyone that had been there that night. It had been a grand feast, one of the grandest that Levinson Manor had ever had. There were people from all over New York Society that had angled and maneuvered to get an invite to such an occasion. Young, beautiful, and accomplished feminine idol, Ms. Cora Levinson had an announcement that evening. No one was sure what it was that she had news about. For a few months she had gone to New Orleans, accompanied by the dashing young Captain Robert Crawley, Lord of Downton. Most were shocked that an Englishman of such standing, with a strong love of the British Imperium, would tolerate the heat and anachronisms of the Reconstructed American South. But, as one would never have to reiterate who knew of such things, when Cora Levinson, so fine and fair, asked a man or boy to come with her anywhere, there was hardly a debate.

Neither of her parents knew what exactly their daughter's news was either. When Cora returned from New Orleans, Martha Levinson had been eager to hear how "Captain Britain" faired in their native city. Truth be told, if a foreigner found the American South tedious, at the best of times, then they would be completely overwhelmed and knocked about by the strange and eccentric "City of the Dead" that was so wholly different than any other place in the world. Yet, brushing her long luxurious tresses of raven curls, the teenage girl only shrugged a bare pale shoulder and smirked. Martha didn't like that. The red-haired Southern Belle most certainly was disturbed whenever her youngest child got that little smirk of mischief on her beautiful face. The girl's mother, with annoyance, had burst into her and Mr. Levinson's room and announced that they should batten down the hatches. _"The "Genius" thinks she's got us this time."_ Martha had exclaimed, forever convinced that her beautiful and lovely young daughter was somehow mentally retarded and or slow witted. Her husband didn't feel that his wife's thinking was helpful, to which Martha would relent, but maintain that their girl was "dumb as a brick" none-the-less.

One might have thought that Mrs. Levinson throwing a large ball and dinner party to celebrate whatever the announcement might have been was a challenge to her teenage daughter's, rather smug, convictions. If "The Professor" was going to be so dramatic, why not announcer her 'news' in front of all of New York High Society while she's at it? She was sure that whatever else could be said for her "lovable dummy" the girl knew how to play to an audience. But Cora, in response to her mother's provocation, went so far as to send more invitations in spite. Martha, being incensed by her prize beauty's cheek, sent even more invites. Soon enough, there seemed to be a thousand people coming to this grand party dedicated too … well, no one was quite sure. But as Mr. Levinson lamented to his son, it didn't really matter at this point, even the lamp lighters in Harlem would come just to see what the fuss was about. To this, Harold Levinson, watching armies of footmen with high stacked plates of china to be placed at long tables, pondered aloud what 'in the hell' was going on?

To this, his father only patted Harold's shoulder and told him not to ask.

When Robert and his sister Lady Rosamund returned back to Rhode Island from England they were shocked. It had not been the easiest month of young Captain Crawley's life. He had gone home to tell his own parents of the news that Cora was currently being coy about in her own family home. But the last thing he expected when he returned was to find a train of carriages, a mile long, winding up the narrow cliff path to Levinson Manor. It seemed that everyone, and he meant 'everyone' in New York City, Newport, and even Boston, had come to this 'intimate' family dinner that he and his older sister were supposed to be attending. Looking at the crowds of people in ballgowns and tails, Rosamund, genuinely, asked her brother if Cora had become President while they were gone. To that, Robert, in shock, said that not even presidents get this kind of reception. He was almost positive that Ms. Cora Levinson had seemingly conquered the entire known world in their absence.

When they found Cora, she was in a silken Worth evening gown that made her cerulean eyes and the sapphire placed upon her brow glow. The durability of the regal headpiece was impressive to Lady Rosamund, a true credit to its craftsmen, for it was surely being tested by the way the teenage girl banged it and her forehead against the wall in self-flagellation. Immediately, Robert asked what was going on. He wanted to know what happened to the 'small family dinner', and he demanded to know who all these people were. To this, Cora admitted that she was absolutely tired of her mother thinking that she was 'mentally challenged', so, to prove her wrong, Cora thought of the absolute stupidest thing she could think of … and did it. Robert hushed Lady Rosamund when she complimented her new friend on the execution and the sticking of the landing.

Cora had no choice but to admit that everything had gotten completely out of hand and asked for Robert's forgiveness. But the Royal Officer only chuckled mirthfully under his breath. He claimed to the girl that he saw as business partner and valued friend, in the least, that he did a rather stupid thing himself back at home. If anything, their combined disasters only proved that they made the right decision in the end. The girl only smiled tiredly, looping herself around his arm. She would take being a close friend when all she did was love him more and more.

The question on everyone's mind was a simple one. What exactly were they all doing at Levinson Manor? There was small talk, mingling, compliments and disdain for the food served. But at all times each eye turned up toward the table on the dais. There, the beautiful and young Cora Levinson poked her food nervously, exchanging dependent looks with Robert and Lady Rosamund. She dared not look to her left where her mother would bore deeply into her, seemingly knowing when to catch her daughter's glance. The girl would quickly look away awkwardly, as Mrs. Levinson would chew obnoxiously, staring a hole of expectancy in her once cocky little girl. Finally, as the second dessert was being served, Martha, domineeringly, turned Cora's chair suddenly to face her. _"Baby girl, are you gonna dance all night with your hand on my ass, or are you gonna make your move?"_ She had asked bluntly.

It was the moment of truth. She took Robert's hand and squeezed it as she stood and cleared her throat. Suddenly the room quieted as a roar of scraping chair legs on marble tile screeched up in the tall ceilinged and opulent dining room. For a long moment Cora looked up at all the masterwork paintings and portraits bought from Austrian and Italian auction houses. She licked her lips nervously, turning back to Robert who gave her a nod of encouragement, while Rosamund tepidly threw her support behind the girl with a very unsure thumb up. Then, with a sigh, she began to tell the room about a story of a little girl with a dream.

"_What?!" _

"_Speak Louder!" _

Sighing, Ms. Cora Levinson raised her voice an octave louder. From that point she began anew with a tale of her Aunts and Grandmother that endured the "Siege of Vicksburg", meanwhile her father and Grandfather fought at Gettysburg with General Lee. And it was there, in those horrible battlefields that her family had a dream.

"_My dear, perhaps you could speak up?!" _

"_Yes, I also know Mrs. Lee, wonderful launderer. But then, the Chinese had been doing that sort of thing for thousands of years, haven't they?" _

"_I feel that we shouldn't talk about Politics at the table, don't you agree, Cora, my sweet?" _

The lovely fairy princess of a teenager rolled her eyes as the crowd began to chatter to themselves over everything under the sun … except her story. Flustered, the girl turned toward Mrs. Levison. Martha had her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her upturned fists. There was a look of pure mocking on her mother's expectant face as she fluttered her eyebrows at her daughter's 'superiority'. The girl was starting to replace her social anxiety in front of the large crowd with a fuming anger.

Suddenly, the crowd went quiet when the frustrated and tilted beauty slammed an uncharacteristic fist on the table. In a sudden rage, the girl mounted her chair. Then, lifting her skirts up, unintentionally slapping Robert across the face with them, she stepped upon the dining table. The entire crowd watched the young girl, surrounded by her parents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins, her school friends, her many, many, suitors, and even the Mayor of the City and two State Governors. There, she climbed atop the table ripping her silk skirts free, knocking forks and glasses to clatter on the floor. With a look of determination, the girl pulled off a long opera glove to show a simple steel ring of medieval design. It was adorned with a gothic dragon with amber eyes. The ancient heirloom of the House of Grantham was on the girl's finger, her engagement finger.

"_WE'RE GETTING MARRIED DAMNIT!" _

It seemed almost planned that at that very moment Robert finally pushed his head out from underneath the girl's skirts. He looked upon a silent and shocked crowd. Mr. Levinson was massaging the bridge of his nose with two fingers, steeling himself for a migraine. Meanwhile, Martha looked completely made of stone, a look of surprise and shock only found on the victims of the Gorgon was etched on her face. For just a brief moment, trying to turn the momentum, Harold attempted to clap for his sister. But he was met with only a distant fork clatter that came in stereo within the silent room. His mother, without looking, grabbed him by his collar and pulled him hard in a death grip as a warning that she would murder him if he didn't shut up. Cora cleared her throat, still standing atop the table.

"_So … keep an eye out for the, uh …umm … well, keep your schedules clear." _

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The main dining room of Levinson Manor- large- opulent- had been a thing of wonder in the days that Cora Levinson had proclaimed her happiest moment in anger. The crimson painted room was adorned with marble columns that bore gilded holly grafted on. It twisted and wrapped about the columns and walls in echoes of the artistic French Romantic Expressionism, taking inspiration from Versailles. All about the crimson hall hung painting and portraits of people and places of the many Romantic and Classical periods of the European Renaissance. While the long table of cherry wood was polished to a glistening glaze in the glow from the stained-glass windows that streamed reflected light from the sun or moon. The place of honor at the table had a certain ethereal spotlight by strategic sunroof which added a certain mystic of lighting. It was a bit of showmanship that was all Martha Levinson. It had been added to the floor plans in order to create and sell an image that no English Lord could deny when her beautiful daughter glistered in light as she sat at her mother's table.

Yet, half a century later, the room was now but a hollowing echo of the grandeur of its glory days in a gilded age. Decades of dust coated the once shining finish of the cherry wood long table. The gilded holly upon the columns were greened and corroded by exposure to salty ocean air that drafted from the many broken stained-glass windows. The sea breeze wheezing and wailing through cracks and crevices of the fractured and ruined room with tall ceiling draped with networks and layers of thick cobwebs. The once painted visage of a clouded twilight sky of violet and orange was lost in dark shadows of neglect upon that once breathtaking ceiling. The paintings, bought at cost from impoverished abbeys and fallen estates at the height of the Imperial European Continent, remained. But now dust and webs obscured artistic faces and moldering painted ruins of antiquity. The once irreplaceable and priceless works of art now hung off rusted and buckling nails at odd angles, wilting and drooping, their heavy frames falling apart in exposure to uncontrolled weather and salty air.

What once was a place which seemed magical, that most of New York Society would kill to come to in the summer months, now looked haunted and deformed. But still, there remained times, in the quiet of the witching hours, when the sound of plates still tinkled, the muffled psycho-babble of dinner chatter reverberated, and the faint echo of a string orchestra could still be heard from the dark narrow halls of the abandoned manor house. They were the ghosts and imprints of a time and place that had not yet been forgotten in the bricks and stones of this gilded palace by the sea. And perhaps the ghosts stirred once more within the dining hall of Levinson Manor for one reason above all else.

There, in the exact same spot were Cora Levinson had once stood defiantly upon the long table, another figure remained stalwart half a century later. The sunlight was dimmed and shadowy in the obscurity of hanging sea moss and ivy that spilled through the broken sunroof above the place of honor. The very appearance of the figure in the ruined temple to a lost world of tomorrow stirred the ghosts and memories. Fore, side by side and step for step with the lovely heiress Cora Levinson, this young man would seem her masculine twin. They both shared black curls and cerulean eyes, he was darker and taller than her, but they shared a similar face. In his fingerless gauntleted hand, the straightened officer's saber of Lord Robert Crawley, worn at his side that very night his engagement to the love of his life went public, flashed and gleamed in the haunted beams of sunlight with its naked blade drawn. The young man who held his ground toe with toe with Ms. Cora's resonance, though dressed in a peacoat of beaten mahogany leather and denim trousers tucked into tall Mexican federal police boots, stood a perfect amalgamation.

In George Crawley, his looks, his appearance, and all that made his soul, was blood that flowed from that fated great love's very future that Cora and Robert cemented for themselves half a century ago in this very dining room.

**RINCKLINK! **

**SHRRICK!**

**TRINK! SHRRICK! SHHHHRINCK!**

Two large men in three-piece padded suits, coal black beards, and trailing black turbans pressed the assault as pounding feet echoed down the long marble corridors. Each man carried a long and curving Saracen Scimitar, their steel black as night, with Arabian runes upon their blades. They each swung with large arcing and sweeping slashes, their swords designed, exclusively, for decapitating the filthy 'Dhimmi' that polluted their Prophet's lands. But today, in the Rhode Island countryside, their black blades could not find their mark.

Low guard, high guard, parry, thrust, each of the religious zealot's blows were met with a ringing of steel against steel. George fought both men two at a time, his grandfather's old royal saber clashing and clattering with horizontal and diagonal parries. Decades of dust clouded about their footwear, as their feet shuffled and hammered on the rickety old crafted table that creaked under the strain. More turbaned Shiite fanatics dripped into the room in single numbers. Blades drawn, each man looked up to watch the dueling figures fighting on the dais, dancing over and around the places of honor. There were a few that watched to look for an opening to join the fight. Yet, most, having already passed through the carnage of the drawing room, hesitated.

Like their butchered brothers, the Islamic fundamentalists found that it was easy carrying their black swords about the open Iranian street. At home they were a part of a sacred order that was answerable to only the Grande Imam. But the world seemed an entirely different and exceedingly more dangerous place when they ran into someone that studied swordplay for many long years, since childhood. At ritualistic ceremony and in accordance to the law they brandished their ancestral heirlooms, but their knowledge of the actual use of the weapons in a fight was extremely limited. They expected to be chasing a child, a teenager that was legendary only in tall tales told by ignorant strangers and perpetrated by Lady Hexham's magazine. Instead they found themselves engaged in combat with a master swordsman who was fighting off religious zealots who swung their sacred blades like primitive clubs. In the end they seemed exotic and fierce, but in truth, they were yet another group of noblemen's' sons who rushed into ceremony for power and prestige, without contemplating what it truly meant to make a vow to kill Allah's enemies.

Still, there was courage in their holy war cry as they rushed forward to the fight. George turned and leapt over a sweeping curved blade. Spinning, he put the toe of a fascistic Mexican boot into the groomed neck beard and chin of a third combatant that tried to mount the table. The Saracen let out a high-pitched gag when the edge of the table caught the small of his back, making a cracking noise as he hit it on his way down to the filth and leaf strewn marble floor. The youth advanced, trying to fight his way out of the enveloping ring that the Shiite were trying to enclose him in. Both his adversaries atop his great-grandmother's table met him again with swinging blades. He parried away the left blade with a sharp ring, before meeting the second sword with a low guard with a flick of the wrist. The blades caught at their shins.

With a quick duck, the curved black blade of the recovering first swordsman passed above his head. Being caught out of position, the bearded man's blood flew out of his mouth along with two of his teeth when the boy used the hand guard of his grandfather's saber as a brass knuckle for the haymaker he threw. The Shiite made no noise as he stumbled heavily off the table, landing in a dust cloud and clatter of aged and overturned dining room chairs at the foot of the dais. Once more he ducked under the second man's high swing for his head. Turning into it, the youth used the fundamentalists own momentum to his deadly advantage. He slid the straightened blade across the Islamic swordsman's torso as he passed, cutting deep into the abdomen. The boy did not turn, but he smelt the blood on his blade and in the air as the man and his entrails spilt onto the table.

However, when George tried to continue, he found that another zealot was blocking his way. Behind him he heard men barking orders in Farsi. The table was about to give way as more and more enemies were climbing on and running after him down it's long face. They were trying to hit him with the old "Hammer and Anvil", rushing him from both sides. But he had already seen this act of the play already once today. Except, instead of hitting the deck, the teenager turned and charged right at the figure trying to cut him off from the main corridor that led to the servant's passages and halls. At the last moment, the youth vaulted over the man's large swing when he halted to cut George in twine. Twisting mid-air in a corkscrew, the boy flipped onto the large burly man.

He found himself standing atop the Shiite zealot, each foot planted on one of the well-dressed fanatic's shoulders. Then, with a spring at the new elevated height, he reached out and caught the bottom rungs of the main crystal and silver chandelier. It had been hung low by the former servant's at times of disuse making it accessible to clean via ladder. Below, the force of his momentum sent the Islamic fundamentalist stumbling right into the jaws of the chasing stampede. The collision, akin to a bowling ball knocking down pins, sent several men into a pile. The force of the collision collapsed the once priceless Levinson dinner table, causing many zealots to go down with it. But there was still a handful which recovered and gathered about the base of the low hanging ornament. The turbaned men leapt to grasp at their enemy. They cursed and swung their blades at the youth's dangling feet as he swung back and forth. Lifting his legs just above the swish of a black scimitar blade. Filth and neglect dusted the bearded men as the chandelier swung like a pendulum back and forth, it tinkled sharply as the teenager climbed the layered rungs of desiccated silver and through the forest of dangling crystals to the top of the gigantic ornament. He waited till the force began to drift back to the shouting and slashing mob of Shiite. Then, grasping the rusted chain the opulent centerpiece was vaulted from, George cut the rusted chain below his hand.

_("Bluto the Pirate" – Elmer Bernstein) _

**CRIIIISH! **

With reckless momentum, the priceless decoration that had once been essential to the whole décor of the modern palace went careening at the grouped together fundamentalists. Some dove out of the way, but most couldn't get away fast enough as they were smashed to pieces by this flying death wheel of crystal and silver finery. For those who couldn't escape, there was nothing left but a skid marking of blood and discarded sacred black scimitars. As for the swordsman, he used the momentum of the rusted chain to swing back. With saber brandished in hand, George Crawley swung dashingly across the dining room, his shadow casting itself over a fixed point of time which would spark a true love that would set in motion his own genesis. He let go of the chain, giving a tight rolling summersault midair, landing with a crouched clap of worn-down boot soles on marble.

Sheathing Robert's saber, taking it in hand, he adjusted his grandmother's Worth wedding dress rolled tightly against the small of his back. But just as he was making for the servant's exit, one last Persian swordsman tried to block him. Timing it for his enemy's reach back when he would give an all-out swing, the adventurer slid feet first between the tall man's open leg stance. Lifting a gauntleted fist, the boy pounded the man's testicles as he slid past. With a gasped cough, the fundamentalist had tears in his eyes as he cradled much more cherished family heirlooms than the black blade the clattered at his feet. He stumbled with high pitched wheezes out into the hallway, hearing, without care, the teens footsteps as they escaped down the dark corridor. Feeling sick to his stomach, he bent over in the middle of the servant's hallway making sobbing anxious noises at the throbbing in his groin.

"THERE'S THAT LIMEY BASTARD!"

"GET'EM!"

"Nope, no, no, nope, no, oh no!"

He only, vaguely, registered the return of sprinting feet that had once alluded him. George Crawley came flying back out of the shadows of the dark corridor going the opposite way. The youth was muttering under his breath in panicked anxiety making a B-line right for the Persian roadblock who thought his troubles couldn't get any worse at the moment. The man made a guttural noise when he felt the youth, in one smooth motion, roll back to back over his keeled over figure. He turned to watch the youth hit his feet in stride at an impressive lit. He only had a moment of catching his breath from the pain in his groin before he felt like he had been swept away in a human tidal wave of angry, mostly Italian and Sicilian, men in dust covered suits. Some were covered in blood, others had ugly black eyes and broken noses … and all of them were beyond pissed off. The Shiite Zealot was trampled, taking some of them with him as a mass of charging figures in pursuit of George Crawley sprinted past and over the heap of bodies.

For a moment they were lost in the narrow and foul darkness of the forgotten and unseen parts of the Levinson household. Like the shrunken and closed arteries of a mummified corpse, where the once lifeblood of the elegance and palatial reverence of the house upon the cliffs of the sea ran, there was only dark and dusty corridors that led to nowhere. Lost, forgotten, there was no knowing what one would find down in the depths of this idealistic monument to a fleeting future of many small moments of a glimmering utopia of promise. But there was a rhythm, an instinct, that carried the gangsters onward, like a herd of near-sighted buffalo galloping through a narrow ravine. Their feet thundered as they charged through the shadowy and cobwebbed halls. There, they found a thrown open door that led to the servant's main staircase.

During the years of the house's activity, at almost every hour of the day, there was traffic down this open main stairway. Whether it was maids carrying bed linins or mops, footmen with trays, and valet with clothing, it was a never-ending bustle of shift work to maintain the large house at all times. Dim light gleamed in ghostly gloom from tall sloping barred windows at each landing that never faced the sun and could never be peered through. At their feet were oaken staircases that traveled as high as Ms. Cora's tower bedroom, all the way down to the ominous storerooms carved out of the seaside caverns at the foundations of the manor house. A tattered and age eaten white carpet traveled up the center of wide stairs that could fit four large men abreast. The railing was oak covered in a film of filth with chipped and whitewashed banisters wrapped in cobwebs. Dust particles danced heavily in the soft haunted glow of the abandoned servant's staircase.

Before then no one went up this way on the hunt for George Crawley. There were many reasons that they gave, from ignorance of the floor plans, to the dodgy knowledge of the structural integrity of the staircases. But the real reason was that there was something not right about the place. There was an eerie quiet that settled, not just in the surroundings, but inside you. Till there was a rattle two flights above, the titter of a female voice whispering under breath with a heavy burden. The faint echo of gossiping figures that seemed too far away to see and yet close enough to hear. And at all times the phantom sounds of feet rushing to and from, up and down. Of all the places, there was something unnerving about the servant's stairs above all the rooms. Perhaps it was simply that after all those years of non-stop activity from shifting armies of maids, hall boys, and footmen, the house still hadn't forgotten the bustle.

**FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM!**

But that didn't seem to matter when the first groups of angry mobsters and mercenaries charged down the steps, halting a moment to steady themselves as the manor shook more violently than before at the latest tremor and roar. Dust rained down atop of them from the railing and banisters from the upper floors as the violence shook the neglect and filthy debris free. The roar chilled them to the core, coming in stereo in the echoing and hollow gloom of the darkened servant's quarters. For a long beat the lead figures held at the head of the column, shushing and smacking one another to shut up as if some mythical beast could hear them. As the moments passed, they began to create a bottle neck at the main entrance of the staircase. Soon, the entire mob of bloody and dusty street thugs were stranded on the stairs, sore both physically and emotionally at everyone around them. Yet, like the buffalo of old, they never realized that they all had been herded, tricked by sleight of hand.

Suddenly, coming from the darkness, the lone mobster dusting off his feathered wide brim fedora at the tail end of the column never noticed a figure uncover his face from inside his leather coat. Peeling away from a blind spot corner in the shadows, George Crawley took three large strides, in complete stealth, before springing up to catch the top of the doorway to the servant's main staircase. Swinging his feet for momentum, he put both Mexican soles of his boots into the back of the last man at the end of the group. Being propelled forward in shocked agony by the small of his back, the gangster fell forward hitting the three bruised and dusty men in front of him. Those three fell into four, then, within moments, an avalanche of humanity rolled with curses, pained cries, and surprise down the stairs. They piled at the main landing, yelling and wrestling in confusion. But those who survived the ugly mishap watched the shadowy figure of their prey slide down the railing, crouched on his feet, avoiding the human wreckage. Giving a smooth and sleek flip off the banister, George hit the landing flawlessly and immediately began to flee up the stairs back to his granny's old teenage girlhood room.

"Come on! There he goes, there he goes, there he goes!"

Now, simply and totally enraged beyond sense, the gangsters and street mercenaries rallied to their feet. In mass, the thugs quickly charged up the stairs in a stampede of vengeance after their wolf's head in a blind head of steam. The thunder of their feet and the outrage in their voices could be heard through the entire secret path. Forever did their noise break the eerie silence that gripped the abandoned servant's staircase for many a forgotten decade. Yet, as the echoes came in the distance, a new sound came closer. It was the sound of fleet-feet hopping down the banisters of the double staircase. Driven by rage and humiliation, no one noticed that George had doubled back via slipping down the railing behind them as they charged upward. Falling with a silent crouch back at the main landing, the youth sidled against a wall, looking up silently to see if they caught onto his trick. But when the noise continued to travel up, the youth took the saber in hand and quickly began to descend.

**FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM!**

The further down he went, the quieter the roar got, but the violence of the shaking became more intense. But between the lulls, the world grew silent as the darkness deepened. Soon, wood paneled walls of whitewash turned to rust colored brick, the oaken stairs turned to smooth stone. Also, the pleasant weather of the closing days of summer that whispered the coming colds of autumn were lost in the deep shadows of the lightless passages of the basement levels of Levinson Manor. There, wrapped in impassable pitch-black corridors, was a deep humidity emanating from a growing source of heat. With the passing of every level it grew steadily, building in intensity. One could only imagine, surrounded by darkness and growing heat, with echoed roars of something large and fierce in the cavernous surroundings, that this was what the descent into Hell might be like.

Yet, George continued on passed slick and coal black rock of a sea cliff cave. Above his head were brick structures, the roots of the house's foundations. Meanwhile, nets and mazes of piping jutted above the humid labyrinth. Slowly, the darkness was cut by sections of the piping which began to glow a soft crimson. The haze of intense heat was visible as it drenched the corridor. The many dark paths were heavily misted with steam that had been conceived in the constant fizzle of condensation dribbled from the ocean cavern ceilings onto the superheated piping.

However, path lit by scolding red light, the youth was not prepared to see that it had gotten so out of hand. He had been so sure of his own timetable when he set the trap, but it seemed he had underestimated how emaciated the manor's central atmosphere had become in so many decades of neglect. Quickly, he picked up the pace, traveling deeper into the increasingly unbearable humidity. The smell of superheated salt in the damp cave passages made his mouth go dry and wetted his raven curls. The environmental condensation collected on the shoulders of his leather peacoat. But still he continued down. It wasn't till he reached the final level of stairs, carved from sea rock, that he returned to his goal.

It had seemed like a long way down, but he figured that he was nowhere near the bottom of the cliff. Yet, the journey seemed long and taxing due to the environmental hazards. But all of that seemed a walk in the park compared to the atmosphere that greeted him when he threw the door open at the very bottom basement level. The humidity had been dissolved away. Down the long hallway, there was nothing but the intensity of a pure dry heat, like standing in front of an open oven on full tilt of blue flames.

Shielding his face with the palm of an outstretched hand, George jogged down the stone corridor carved out of sheer rock. The glimmer of sediment and rare gems on the walls and ceiling of the cavern was shown in the red light that tunneled at the end of the corridor. Mini fires blazed forth from mushroom and fungus that grew out of the rocks of the cave, raining sparks and embers down all around from the exposure to the immense heat setting them aflame. Half-way to the end of the hall, the youth stopped at what was the beginning of a brick wall of the very bottom of the manor's foundations. With a familiar hand, the youth gripped a loose brick and pulled it out. It made a loud clacking noise against the rocky floor as George repeated the action of removing bricks and tossing them away at a frantic pace. Behind the collection of loose bricks was a secret compartment filled with insulation. It had been a hiding place carved out for someone within the Levinson Family. But on this day, George Crawley retrieved, instead, the only items he had to his name.

Wrapped around an old and worn holster and a Bowie knife's sheath covered by American Indian string cartography was a leather Mexican weapon's belt. It had once belonged to a Lieutenant of Pancho Via. He had been a killer of many "Federales" and five citizens of Columbus New Mexico in 1916. The old villain had survived a failed civil war, only to foolishly challenge a young racer to a gunfighting duel in a crowded seaside Cantina during fiesta in the palmed paradise of Tijuana. The adventurer had taken it off the old revolutionary he had left dead under the moonlight on the seashores of Mexico. Inside the holster was a sleek and streamlined revolver that was futuristic. It was the kind of weapon that, like much of George's gear and weapons, was unique and distinguishing.

The Webley was different then when it had been given to Matthew Crawley just before "The Battle of Mons" in 1914. Nor was it the same weapon he gave to Lady Sybil Branson, who used it on an Orangeman with a grudge before she fled her and her husband's flat in Dublin for the final time. After years in a locker downstairs, taken from Lady Sybil's nightstand drawer after her death, it had been given to a young child by his family's butler in case he ever needed use of it to escape royal agents who would put him in Carfax Asylum. Eight years later it gained much fame for its design and its owner's constant need of it through many adventures in a world of Depression.

But mostly it was famed for its unique and one of a kind refitting.

In debt to a young swashbuckling rebel that had saved him from cultists, Jiro Sato, the genius Japanese gunsmith of New Orleans, offered to retrofit and streamline his hero's revolver. Laboring in passion for the artistry of weapon's crafting as the grandson of the Emperor's personal Metallurgist, and a fan of the American Western Cinema and pulp magazines … Sato made a masterpiece.

The weapon was taken apart, reassembled, then broken, and rebuilt by a mad genius's interpretation of weapon design. It's sleek and streamlined redesign, plus its powerful retrofitting to fire rifle caliber bullets, had many comparing the futuristic looking weapon as _"Something out of Buck Rogers"_ by those who glanced it in wonder and amazement. Thus, the finished product was what the boy's band of rebels revered and a dark Necromancing sorcerer would curse as "The Ray Gun". While many unfortunate Mexican Pistoleros and old socialist revolutionaries simply called it "El Cañón de Mano" with just a lilt of fear in their voices for the revolver and the one who wielded it.

Slipping his weapons undercoat and around his waist, George fastened them with a clip of the large silver buckle, the 'Ray Gun' resting on his back hip. Next, with shuffling, he pulled out a pack of fine brown leather that had gone supple in long years of exposure to harsh weather and constant use since he was a small boy. Like most of his equipment and gear, George Crawley was known to be quite sentimental about clothing and items. He was known not to let go of something just because it had some age. Thus, he never questioned why the pack, given to him by his master, had somehow never been outgrown by him. It seemed to fit him no matter how he grew over the years, matching his size and need. Under the flap was a rolled blueish grey blanket which had shown wear, but not as much tear as it should have. It had been used for many years, given to an adventurer long ago, on his first voyage as a child on the vessel of a skeptical Science Pirate who took him as an apprentice. The woven material was of unknown origin, its pattern beyond the craft of modern machinery, and its uses more than what could be perceived for both warmth and camouflage. But he paused at the item that was hanging off the back of it, attached to the tarnished and chipped four-pointed star of silver that usually clasped the pack's flap.

_("Terrible Fate" – Theophany)_

It was like a punch to the face. He reeled a moment, though his feet were planted firmly. He was suddenly overwhelmed, his senses flinching, his muscles tightening as if some terrifying figure of nightmares had leapt out in ambush and onto him. He made no sound, but inside he felt as if some foreign entity, giving shrill cries of terrifying noises, was clawing and attacking. The darkness surrounded him, the heat intensified, and he felt as if his entire body was set on fire like the mushrooms and cave fungous around him. He could feel every ember, every lick of flame that blackened his skin and scorch his nerves till they popped off like the cooking of meat over a cookfire. He felt the pain, the panic, and the confusion of being lit on fire in the endless void that lies beyond the circles of the world.

In his moment of agony, his mind was suddenly filled with dark images. Thomas in the West Wing of Downton Abbey, an unmoving baby girl swaddled in his arms by her favorite blanket as he wordlessly carried her away. The venomous look of Lady Mary Crawley as she sat, languishingly, upon the red carpeted floor by the Nursery Door. How she hated him, her own son who had lost her everything in that moment. He stood in a doorway of a Knickerbocker bedroom in Manhattan with his father's smoking revolver in hand, five dead old women lay naked and half-dressed around a nude young mother they had forced onto their king-sized bed. The look in the blood covered beauty's frightened blue eyes haunted his very soul, thinking that the last round in the chamber was for her. Then, finally, there was a firelit room in the bayou country house of an African Priestess. A young girl with fine chestnut hair in ringlets and bow, dark almond eyes, black ribbon choker, and white dress of lace lay in the middle of the floor. She had three gunshot wounds, rifle caliber slugs, all in her pale chest. The girl, the finest of Southern Belle's, the Lily of New Orleans, looked at him with such sorrow and remorse for what she did. Fore, in her mind, this had happened to her for something that she had done, some wickedness. It never entered her mind that it had ever been his mistake, not the boy that she loved with all her heart … that she would love even onto her pending death.

It was physical, mental, and spiritual agony that overcame him all of the sudden. The perpetual torment of being engulfed in flames, the empty darkness all around him, and his mind overcome with the endless screams and begging of two little girls. It came in stereo, Marigold sobbing in fear, begging her grandmother figure to see that she was a good girl. Meanwhile Sybbie pleaded with Mirada Pelham that she could do whatever she liked to her as long as she didn't hurt Marigold. It came so loudly, so clearly, that it was as if he was there again, eight years ago. Then, surrounded by physical and mental anguish, the cries of the girls he loved awoke a sudden fierceness. It was an anger that straddled madness as he took the pain in masochistic drumming. The exertions of the darkness upon him back building a torque of iron will and rage that drove him when all hope was left faded in many terrible places of this world that he had seen and been trapped by. Then, when all his flesh burned off, turned to ash that blew away, it revealed a suit of armor that was impenetrable. With gritted teeth, the images and voices of a tragic past fueling an anger that was past rage and hatred, the boy push back against everything that had been piled atop of him. Again, and again, he pounded and hammered at the visions that were meant to cripple him, each wound and cut driving him to hit harder. The darkness began to fade, the voices dimmed, the awful memories conquered. Then, he opened his eyes to find his flesh untouched, the room brightened by the glow of red at the end of the corridor, and his sight filled with his opponent.

Two slit eyes wreathed in flame burned fiercely from the ceremonial tribal mask of "The Necromancer" that was attached to the four-pointed star clasp upon his old pack. Runes of an ancient and evil language of pre-history, in an age of man undreamed of, scrolled across in a glowing crimson upon the wooden bark of a mask carved from the Nubian Tree of the Serengeti. The power and potency of the extreme and purity of heat had not risked the incredibly ancient wood, but instead reinvigorated its powers. Even now, George could feel the wicked hand of a defeated foe reach out and strike at the defenses of his mind. The savage and brutality of their physical duel in the catacombs of the St. Louis Graveyard of New Orleans months ago was now matched by the sheer will power of their mental battle in the fuming darkness of the sea caverns under Levinson Manor. Black sludge like ectoplasm seeped from the brutal twin facial scars across George's eye that the ancient evil had given him physically in their last fight as they set their powers against one another on the mental plains.

The Mask knew better than to try and tempt its captor. From their first duel in the Temple of the Dark Lord within a sunken continent when George was but a child, an apprentice of a science pirate. To their battles when he was a young captain of a rebel band in New Orleans. And finally, their last duel months ago. The ancient evil within the mask knew there was nothing it could give nor offer to the stalwart and valiant young hero. So, it swung and clawed like a feral animal, the shadow consciousness of an evil sorcerer of long ago trying to escape, to destroy its enemy by its dark powers inherent within the mask. But it was unavailed against the might of one whose suffering and tragedies fueled an exhaustible store of inner strength unrivaled. Ectoplasm sizzled with a foul scent while it dripped from the youth's wounds onto the heated mask while the boy hammered the maleficent poltergeist of the Necromancer back into dormancy. The crimson glow of evil runes faded back into the wood of the wicked tree like a ghost through a wall. The flaming eyes of the dark Sorcerer Supremes' black spirt trapped inside disappeared, leaving only blank eye slits that were windows into the endless void.

Fore, it yet perceived in secret, kindling its malice, that time was the one thing that the foul spirit trapped within the mask had in great abundance.

When the battle was over, the youth slumped hard against the brick wall, his pack jangling. Though he had not been set on fire nor tossed into the void, George's mind reeled as if he had borne such injuries. He would recover, but not simply, and certainly not quickly. It was with a deathly burden that he carried such an item of exceeding evil on him. Many times, in his dreams and wandering mind on leagues of traveling miles, it had been overtaken by horrible things of his past. The voice of the self-righteous wrath of the great accuser commentating and tormenting his conscience and mind, attempting to corrupt him, to drive him mad. And there were many of nights that the youth wished to toss aside the vile tribal mask, the greatest of evil artifacts still in the world. But he would not risk blunder nor naysay practical wisdom for a moment's reprieve from the torments of a vile wickedness's malice.

George Crawley would not leave such an evil on the side of the road to be found by an unsuspecting and innocent stranger only for they to become a victim and thrall as the demon's new host. Neither did he wish to face the same enemy again which would now have a greater knowledge of George and his loved ones through its many weeks of fierce sorties to overthrow his mind. The only safe thing to do was to carry it with him. He would find a guarded place to lock it away so that the Necromancer, the shadow of a greater evil of the ancient world, might never conceive more evil designs in this modern age of man who had lost all knowledge of such things of pure wickedness and power.

And, yet, the doom of the exiled heirs of the fallen House of Grantham had long been spoken.

Sliding the sheathed saber alongside his pack by harness, the youth slung the fine leather behind him with jangle and rattle of sword. He gritted his teeth at the sudden immensity of the weight upon his back, like he was carrying nothing but lead inside. He took a moment to steady his mind, hardening his heart. The pack in question carried no such heavy load, resting evenly atop Cora Levinson's tightly rolled Worth Wedding Gown upon the small of George's back. Instead it was all within his mind and in his soul, for the mask of the sorcerer, bearing tens of thousands of years of distilled evil, manifested itself as a greater burden. Neither could it be said now, that of all the greater deeds and hardest tasks, carrying the Vodun mask upon his back and resisting its many temptation and torments was, perhaps, one of the single most dangerous and valiant feats ever accomplished in this age of man.

The saber rattled in its metallic sheath as the figure of the young hero stumbled a few steps, knees buckling and shaking. But eventually, reaching into his coat the youth withdrew the silver fob watch he had used in his granny's bedroom. He grasped it tightly, holding it to his breast, gasping for air in the heat and burdened weight upon him. He didn't flinch when he closed his eyes and felt a hand reach out to touch him. Slender, graceful, and fair beyond words, he felt the sudden maternal embrace of a young woman hold to him gently, helping him back to full height. When he opened his eyes, he didn't see the raven-haired daughter of an Earl and a talented nurse who had been by his side his entire life. But the concentric circles on the cover of the silver watch glowed a soft azure that showed that something had responded to his plight.

His breath was that of one who came up for air after too long under deep waters. He was freed from the deathly weight within the touch of the ethereal angel that was drawn to him by a simple and primal love for a young man who never knew she was ever there. Unraveling the fine silver chain about the fob watch, the youth once more placed about his neck. He had hidden it in his inner coat pocket, knowing that it would be the first thing that a studious and experienced Bounty Hunter would look for while on the hunt for George "The Comet" Crawley. But now he saw no reason to conceal the artifact. It's very touch, like the spirit of the magical princess who gave it to him, lightened his load greatly and cancelled out the evil torments of the mask upon his back. The circles from the crest of "The Master's Wheel" continued to glow softly within his shirt as the youth now rushed toward the red light at the end of the corridor.

He covered his head with his forearm to protect himself from the floating embers of burning cave fungus floating from the ceiling. When he reached the door at the end of the hallway, he found a warped and bulbous dent at the very center of the aluminum bolted door. All about the frame was a deep crimson light that wreathed it. The doorknob was glowing red, sauntering steam flowing off it as the first dribbles of heated brass liquid melted in thin river down to the keyhole. George knew what that meant. Lowering his goggles over his eyes from his forehead, George reached behind him and extracted the greyish blue blanket rolled under his pack's flap. He cloaked and cowled himself in the luxuriously soft and masterfully woven material. Then, holding his breath, the youth threw a boot into the heated door kicking it open.

"Ahh!"

Even wrapped in protective material made from the strongest hemp from the dark ocean floor, the intensity of the heat rushed over the figure in a strong gale of pent up energy. Embers and ashy mushrooms were swept down the corridor. George felt as if he had kicked open the door that housed the 'fucking' sun. His face stung as the heat became so intense that he couldn't even sweat. Shutting his eyes, the boy forced himself to struggle forward, when every instinct inside him screamed to run the opposite way. After all, this wasn't exactly what he had in mind when he set the whole thing in motion. Now, as it was, this might be much closer than he thought, or wanted it to be. He sprang into the raging inferno that was lit inside the room.

It was here that the great and mighty mythical beast whose roar shuddered and quaked the opulent palace resided. Yet there was no sleeping fire drake guarding a horde of the choicest treasures of the Levinson family. Instead there was a rocking and moaning Iron hided beast which was rattling and clanking. Tentacles and appendages of searing hot pipes of glowing crimson were attached to the metallic monster whose shimmying was loosening iron bolts as steam erupted from a bulging and warping pot belly. Here, at the very bottom levels of Levinson Manor, there could be found one of the largest and most powerful heating furnaces in all of the world. At its peak, it could easily centrally heat not just every room and level of the manor, but all of the servant's areas. In the string of some of the most devastating winters of the late 1880's, Levinson Manor was a beacon and outpost against the deathly cold for many of those years. However, having been in disuse for many long decades since those days, not to mention George Crawley clogging the pipes when hearing of the coming of an army of foes. Now, three hours of being turned to the highest setting with the heat having nowhere to go, each clogged pipe was ready to burst like a pin to a large explosive that sat on the very roots of the manor itself. And when the ripening Industrial furnace finally hit critical …

No one wanted to be even half a mile from the manor which was set to go off like a ton of dynamite.

George peaked behind goggles that protected his eyes from flying embers and sparks shooting from the rumbling machine. The glass had already burst from the meter read outs that maintained the heat levels of the furnace. Inside each instrument monitor, every arrow was ticked far to the right, most wobbling deeper into the critical red areas. More and more steam from building pressure in the clogged mechanism was spilling out, fogging the room in blistering obscurity up to George's knees. The iron furnace was starting to glow a deep crimson. The bolts from buckling compartments and pressurized pipes shot off like 'Tommy Gun' bullets into the rocky walls and ceiling of the sea cave. The youth ducked several ricochets as he backed away from the expanding machine that was in a critical countdown to oblivion.

"Shit, shit, shit!" The youth muttered to himself. "Yeah, you're really going to show up the guineas by blowing yourself up before they can!" He scoffed in self-admonishment at his own stupidity.

At the end of the room was a large and expansive tube of thick black iron that lifted up into the cavern ceiling. In front of the man-sized expansive pipe was a long rectangular door that cut across sideways. When George tossed it open quickly, to not scold himself, he jumped back as a deluge of decades old coal nuggets slushed out, skittering and clattering onto the floor. With a curse, the youth dug out two sets of thick insulated leather workman's gloves used by former boiler maintenance men that had once shoveled said coal into the furnace. The youth put both sets of gloves over his hands. He could barely move his fingers. But it was just enough to do what had to be done. Reaching into the dark tube, the youth tossed out two shovels, before slipping inside the pipe. Kicking more fossilized coal onto the floor, George shut the door behind him.

It was pitch black inside the confined space. Lifting his hand in front of his face, he would've never known it was there. But the one thing he did notice was that the feeling that he was standing in the inner sanctum of an erupting volcano had gone away. He had taken refuge in the coal storage compartment. It had been a large piped tube that stretched from the surface of the manor all the way down to the boiler room. Thus, rather than carry tons of coal down to the basement, workers need only to shovel it down the shoot. Out of sheer necessity to protect the coal from enfilade heat from the furnace, the iron tube was double insulated against the environment of the room outside. However, as a testament to the coming Armageddon, George could feel the heat seeping through the iron. In the bald spots on the floor, uncovered by coal, he could already see the soft glow of crimson and smoke starting to saunter off the coal. Removing his trusted heatshield and camouflage blanket, he rolled it up tightly and shoved it back under flap of his pack. Then, feeling around, he grasped hard iron rungs of a wide built in maintenance ladder that went up.

George mounted the long iron bars and began to climb them quickly with squealing cries of new weight on rusted metal. The sizzle that met his climbing alerted him to the luck of wearing insulated gloves before gripping the rungs. The measurement of progress was taken on faith for the young man as he climbed in the exclusivity of impenetrable darkness. The sound of his feet and hands echoed hollowly up and down the pipe. He panted in anxiety, not knowing how much time he had before the furnace blew. It also didn't help that he now had to climb the literal length of the basement levels. It was as if one had to scale the sheer seaside cliff face to race a coming explosion.

But if George Crawley was exhausted, he didn't feel it, fore, his adrenaline shot through the roof when he looked down. The sound of fizzling was a harbinger to a sudden red light that glowed from below. Creeping slowly up, like a rising tide, was the heat from the furnace which had finally melted through the insulation and was working its way up toward him. Soon, he was coughing as smoke from the cooking coal began to drift up toward him. Before long, oxygen was becoming scarce. Anxiety began to set in as he bumbled into another situation of his own making. He had gone from being nearly incinerated from a bomb he armed himself, to being suffocated to death while climbing a blazing chimney. It took all his training and forceable will not to panic or give into fear. If he overexerted himself, then he might use up all the oxygen, and pass out, leading to being burned alive. The adventurer maintained an ascent that was steady and quick paced as the smoke grew thicker about him, testing his very nerve.

Finally, with no time for relief, George had tied his race with the red glow and billowing smoke to the top. Yet, surrounded by black obscurity and sizzling iron walls, the youth found that the hatch was closed. Steam and smoke were starting to rise from under his hands as the heat began to eat away at the first layer of his workman's gloves. Now, shortening his breath in a miasmic fog of black toxicity, while the intensity of oven like heat surrounded him, George made his first sputter of fear. Again, and again, the youth threw a leather clad shoulder against the clamped hatch with force. Steam fizzled off the leather, and had it been any other coat the heat would've eaten it away assuredly. However, the coat that George Crawley, and his unbroken line of descendants, would later become synonymous with was much more than met the eye.

Yet, for once, the age of the manor worked in the adventurer's favor. In the glory days of the Levinson's reign in High Society, nothing could move the locked hatch. But decades of rust and disuse gave way its strength. And when George precariously grasped each side of the lips of the hatch, hanging over the open chasm of fiery death in order to propel both his feet up to kick it, the iron circle showed gleams of sunlight upon overgrowth on the estate grounds. The force of George's kicks over the open chasm grew more and more desperate as he felt the heat of the sweltering and scorching metal burn away the material of his gloves. But still no oxygen flowed down, as each sliver of open air was pushed out by escaping coal smoke that flooded through each crack of daylight. As George began to lose consciousness muddled words began to play in his head as despair began to take hold of his struggle to open the hatch.

"_You are an ill-bred, vengeful, violent, plague upon this family and its noble legacy!"_

**BANG!**

"_I have spent many nights convinced that Isobel, in some madness of self-righteous charity, switched my boy at birth with some farmer's daughter's mistake left at the village church doors. And it warms me, truly, at times to think that our real heir is safely tucked away on some kindhearted tenant's farm. Yet, I couldn't find him nor bring him home till now, because, no matter how hard I've tried, I could not convince Mama and Papa that __**you are not mine**__!_

**CLANKGCK!**

"_So, go on, nameless bastard, go fight your 'honorable' last stand! You have taken my husband and my baby from me, but I won't let you take my daughter, my only child left! I wish you, with speed, to whatever end you choose as long as it's far from me and you don't linger!"_

**BANG!**

"_SO GO!"_

**CLANKGCK!**

"_Matthew and Caroline were irreplaceable. They were so very unlike you, with your provincial courage and grifter's swagger who any beggar can find in a dozen more orphanages all around the Empire. There was only one Matthew Crawley and Caroline Talbot. You? Dogs have the same courage and integrity, but with double loyalty and thrice the breeding in their tails."_

**BANG!**

"GO!"

**SHRROTTHUMPH!**

Suddenly, with one last kick of despairing and helpless rage, the hatch was knocked completely off its corroded hinges with a sobering and uncomfortable squeal of metal. As it popped into the air, the heavy iron cover nearly hit George. Evasively, he released his right hand and swung back. The pain of the third iron rung from the top smashing into his ribs nearly weakened his grip. With clenched teeth he dangled one handed over the fiery chasm in the blinding river of smoke escaping through the opening to the surface. Laboring, with the last of his strength, George climbed out of the billowing furnace manhole and out into the cool and sunny air of the final summer days of the Rhode Island countryside. With elation at such a small and hard-won victory, George threw himself into the ivy and vines of the overgrown servant's area behind the manor.

For a long moment he lay on the ground. All about him was a wide and expansive stone patio that was covered in vines, Ivy, and weeds that cropped up and pushed through the spaces between the tiles. There were a complex of other buildings and smaller houses. A domed glass paneled greenhouse completely grown over by the vegetation inside. Branches from trees and hedge limbs burst through brittle weather and sea stained glass. Thick Ivy draped over the whitewashed smoke house whose eaten and weathered wooden door hung off its hinges on a termite devastated wooden porch. The servant's quarters were located in a dilapidated and large rust colored brick building which was wrapped in vines that snaked through broken windows and stained white wooden panes. Behind the lavished manor house, built in dedication to a Tomorrowland that never was, there seemed to be an entire community of servants and ground keepers who lived their lives around it. There were food stands, catering tables, and even a weed eaten and rusted baseball diamond in the far distance. There was a time, in places now forgotten, that this grand house seemed to generate its very own universe, an existence, all on its own.

But George Crawley didn't look out to this almost cult like commune in ruins, but instead lifted his soot stained goggles up to the top of his forehead and lay back. In the distance there was bird chatter. He squinted his eyes against the gleam of the late-morning sun. And he was stilled by the sound of the cool breeze that rustled the weeds and ivy leaves about him. After days locked up in the quiet and abandoned manor, George had almost forgotten the feeling of the wind on his cheeks and to hear the noise of living things once more. He was, momentarily, besotted by the sunlight and fresh air of the closing summer days of rural New England. His eyes transfixed by the swaying motion of a distant tree near the greenhouse that was caught in the sea breeze which rustled its green leaves as it quivered. He seemed to be as one who had escaped a tomb that he had been shut in living, lost in darkness which made him forget the simple pleasures of a summer day.

With a shake of his head, the figure, stained by carbon scoring on his coat and cheeks, lifted his hands. "I'll be damned …" He whispered in disbelief as he glanced his bare palms stained black. It was only then that he realized how close he had just scraped by. The heat of the iron surface he just climbed had not just burned through both double layers of the insulated workmen gloves he wore but had also burned through his own padded fingerless gauntlets. His escape had just been in the nick of time, or else in any moment afterward the heated iron would've burned right through the flesh of his hands.

**FFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOMMMMM!**

His mind was shaken back to the situation when he felt the ground underneath him rumble harshly. His hand shot like lightning to the Ray Gun when he heard loud smashing of glass. In the distance he saw that the violence of the latest tremor had loosened the panes of several windows in the abandoned servant's quarters and the overgrown greenhouse. Removing his hand, the leather pack jangled, the saber rattled, and the ancient wood of the evil mask clunked when George rolled onto his front and got back to his feet. With anxiety, the youth removed and tossed the double pair of gloves and pocketed his fingerless gauntlets he would have to mend and patch once more. He was behind the lazy perimeter that the mercenaries and gangsters had thrown up. Now, possessing all the items he came to this godforsaken place for, his new and only goal was to get out before the furnace went critical …

Putting two fingers in his mouth, the youth gave an alerting whistle toward the tree by the overgrown greenhouse.

The novelty excitement of the action in the large whitewashed palatial Gilded Age ruin was lost on the company of reserves that were sent to keep a watch on the main gates. Most were gangsters, new to the organization. They were sons, nephews, and cousins that were given the shit work, trusted enough to watch the cars … and that was about it. They had gotten insulted, smacked on the back of the head, and told to shut up by the older guys when they complained. There was no way of knowing when they'd be able to prove themselves to the bosses and lieutenants. Instead, they picked guys up, drove them to places, and served dinner at the safe houses to a table of wise guys that had never ending jokes in which the new recruits were always the butt. Some of the boys were disheartened, gathering around in groups, shooting dice in front of the line of top end bumpers. They were all told by the upper management- the real paisanos- that if they were going to go on a long trip to Rhode Island, of all places, they were gonna do it in style.

Yet, in the end, this was the sort of thinking which led to blunders. Fore it was the column of flashy cars manned by men in even flashier suits that got them noticed on their way to Newport. Thus, in their unhurried show boating through New England, the rumors of their coming long proceeded them. It was why by the time they arrived and looked to storm Levinson Manor, they found nothing, but traps set by an enemy who was laying in wait for them.

And yet, with the noise of young men shooting dice, and the general dying down of the sound of gunfire in the manor, there was a single undisturbed figure who sat alone in a plain motorcar that had diplomatic markings. It was of modest make compared to the gangster's vehicles, and the color was rather lived in, unremarkable. Yet, what the car had been was reliable and non-conspicuous. That was what the older woman wanted, what she told her men to choose. For a long time, the handsome figure, in silk dress and matching turquoise hat with pinned feather, had studied her enemy. She was by no means an expert, fore, in truth, no one could be. But she had sent out modest eyes and ears, and the handsome older woman had a brain on her.

These transplanted Italian rustics still lived and died ten miles from where they were born, like in the old country. They were racist, prejudice, and xenophobic. Thus, they were useless on the hunt, not good for anything other than grunt and muscle work. These prejudice apes came to this place in force, somehow expecting to find an English Gentleman, the Lord of Downton, some figure approximating Crawley's hero Sherlock Holmes and the boy's old teacher and mentor Allan Quartermain. When in reality he would be nothing of the sort. The older woman knew that George Crawley's greatest strength, the reason he had alluded her all these long years, was due to his uncanny anonymity and his unmatched skills as a ranger. His years being taught the ways of surviving in the wild by the likes of Quartermain and the greatest of African tribesmen often thwarted her.

From the time he was just a boy to now as a teenager, the heir to the House of Grantham knew how to blend in with his surroundings and disappear into the wild. Never had the youth used his real name in the open or in writing. It took her years to find him, after chasing ghosts and tall tales from New York City to New Orleans. Ever had her agents followed up on numerous stories of some rather good-looking kid with a Webley Revolver who helped some Mississippi farmer. Some nameless kid who rescued some young woman from desperate ruffians in West Virginia using Hong Kong street fighting martial arts. And a youth who had handedly alluded the Ku Klux Klan in some mountain path at the Cumberland Gap between Virginia and Tennessee. If you asked the people which he had saved years ago where he went, they'd send you in the wrong direction or flat out lie. If you asked American Democrat Senators and Representatives, they'd deny knowing anything about their dealings with the Ku Klux Klan, but then, assure the older foreign woman that the 'Dirty little Limey Papist' she was looking for had been dead for years. Of course, it wasn't true, yet the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party would never reveal that they had been outwitted by a tweeny, least the Negros, Jews, and Papists catch wind of their weakness and turn up at the ballot box.

In New Orleans she and her men were turned away from nightclubs, restaurants, and other businesses. It was a city built on tolerance and acceptance, but there was no place for bounty hunters or anyone else that was after "The Comet". One negro grandmother on stage even stopped her jazz set just to throw the older woman out of her club for speaking ill of the once Outlaw Captain that was known in those parts. It was apparent that wherever George Crawley had been seen, he left devoted friends and admirers for valiant deeds done for their benefit and salvation. It wasn't till he reappeared in South Texas and Mexico that her influence could finally be woven.

The Southwest of North America was a dangerous place, especially in Mexico. There, George Crawley's good deeds meant nothing to roving bands of Mexican bandits and mercenaries, former revolutionaries from a lost Civil War. Nor did his legend frighten desperate and angry Native Indian gangs fleeing to the lawless Rio Grande from the dust storms that swallowed their reservations in Oklahoma. And there was always a man with no name, ready and willing, to hunt a rogue figure down for a price in the places that Crawley ranged. The civility found on the American and Mexican border during the end of the Gilded Age had once more been lost in the worst years of the Depression. Thus, it was, that in a place where violence and lawlessness ran rampant, there were plenty of assassins, bounty hunters, and desperate fighters who would gladly collect the price the older woman was willing to pay. Yet, it had been two years, and all she had to show for it was a false hope in locking George Crawley away in "The Mission" at Saltillo. There, she thought he'd rot away, lose his mind to the endless darkness of that evil place. But he escaped within a year. Since then, her bounty hunters, assassins and even some of the most trusted and beloved members of her own household have only ended up on the wrong end of the fabled Ray Gun or went missing beyond accounting somewhere out there in the hills of Mexico.

It was an endless madness, a tangled web of torments that strangled the life out of the dark colored woman with fair skin that sat frozen in the backseat of her car. Her dark eyes watched the rolling dice of the young Italian American men in the distance. It shouldn't be this hard, it was never supposed to be this hard. What she wanted was justice, and what she got was suffering. Why was it that her son's death seemed so simple? And yet, allowing her to find peace in it was so hard? All it took was a night, a simple stroking of a beautiful British Lady's pale and nervous hand around her son's manhood, around any manhood, for the first time. No investigation, no convictions, he was simply dead. It was condescending, it was outrageous, to think that her pride, her joy, the only thing she ever loved in this world could be taken, and that was it. His lifeless body carried across the manor like so much garbage, by infidels, by women, by filthy cows! It was murder, it had to be! The Countess of Grantham, her whore, and the unwashed maid acting as if they were disposing of a body. Someone had to pay! Someone would pay!

But for eighteen years no one had.

There were times that the wilting foreign rose thought of outright killing her, this Lady Mary Crawley. It would be so simple, to take the life of the blushing pale virgin that murdered her son. In fact, it might have been the easiest kill of them all. She toyed with the idea of having her raped in her bed, humiliated and defiled, to be found by her family in gruesome and terrifying remains. No one in Grantham County would ever forget the gory and horrible murder of Lady Mary. But then, her suffering, her pain, would only be temporary. Sodomized, tortured, and gutted like a filthy swine, it all ended in death eventually. It was too easy; it was too quick. She wanted the elegant and beautiful fashion queen to suffer as she suffered. She wanted her to be sitting in a car, in a foreign country, living only by the blackest of hate within.

It had been fifteen years, fifteen long years since she had her opportunity to visit her revenge upon the silken whore of the House of Grantham. It was a religious imperative, 'an eye for an eye'. She would kill Lady Mary's son, take his life, and then they would be even. Yet, that kind of poetic absolution had long evaded her. Fore George Crawley turned out to be so wholly different than his parents, so unique in temperament to a normal English Gentleman, and how infuriating and tragically ironic it was. Through the long years her nephew, her grandson, and the most trusted members of her household told her that there was no point in chasing George Crawley. They say that he hates Lady Mary, that given the chance he would stake the demonic beauty himself. They say that Lady Mary disavowed him, said he was illegitimate, a foundling imposter. Why continue to throw fortunes and valued lives away when there was no love between mother and son? But the older woman never bought such stories. She had been a mother herself once, a mother to a terrible and frightening monster. And she knew the truth of the matter.

The first time her son had raped a woman it had been her own Persian Lady's Maid when he was fourteen. The regal woman had attacked her son, chased him around their estate outside Istanbul, smacked his beautiful face with her shoe. She had cursed him, told him he was nothing but a dog, that he brought shame upon them all. Yet, in the end, she didn't stop loving him, nor did she blink in having the woman he violated stoned as an adulteress. Kamal would always be her son, he would always be the love of her life, even when the stories of his 'forceful vulgarities' abroad reached so low as shepherds' wives and so high as the youngest Princess of Monaco.

But still the foreign princess did not believe that British Vampire hated her own son. Fore, if Princess Pamuk could still love a son who had even forced his own mother into bed at his will and want, then Lady Mary would love a son for the minor sin of being so very different than what she wanted out of a child. In the end, the Iranian princess knew that the death of George Crawley would destroy Lady Mary Josephine Crawley irreparably, no matter what she said in public or even unto herself.

Yet, today … today might be the final day, when all scores were settled, and she might rest forever afterward.

But there was a familiar noise that stirred her from her ice-cold concentration off the clicking and rolling dice in her purview. At first, she couldn't place her finger on what it was. It wasn't that she didn't know what the sound was. It was the sudden misplacement of it, the shocked oddity of it being in this place of all places. Indeed, it simply slipped her mental grasp, the sound not forming a picture in her mind. She stirred in her seat, looking all around with a puzzled countenance upon her aged handsome face. It grew louder as it came closer to them at a rapid pace. The woman sat up, noticing that now even the younger men had taken notice of the obvious noise that still remained vaguely unreachable in her mind. The gangsters didn't arm themselves, but simply gathered close, looking all around.

The front of the Levinson Estate was a vast wilderness of overgrown shrubs, tall weeds, and twisted trees. The once white stone walkways of the grand house were overgrown, swallowed by a hedge maze grown wild, and upturned by snaking tree roots that worked their way slowly to the sea moss clogged fountain. It seemed impossible to maneuver in any large group and taking the cars any closer to the Manor was simply out of the question. Having burst through the decrepit and warped front gates, the lead car of the column had instantly paid for it by its undercarriage being caught under twisted roots upon the grounds. Most of this expedition would have to be done by foot, something no one, not even the Princess's men, relished.

But the word she was looking for was … hoofs. Yes, it was all too late that the Princess realized that what she was hearing was the sound of racing, fleet footed, horse hoofs on stained cobble stone. By the time that she realized that was what it was, there was a rustle coming from the new wild overgrowth from the ever-expanding hedge maze. Breaking through the foliage in a leap was a black stallion with white feet and a matching star upon its brow. Mounted on a fine leather saddle made especially for Lady Mary on her eighteenth birthday, was a figure that the older woman did not recognize. Giving the magnificent beast urging kicks, he galloped through the tangled web of vines and roots, thundering from the maze onto the main thorough fair toward the gates. No one stopped him, most looked puzzled. The only people who did anything was the Princess's personal guard who drew their swords and circled about her closed door.

There, for the briefest moments, the older woman's dark glistering eyes met the cerulean of the stranger that rode by. He was taller and darker than the rest of his family, covered in soot and carbon scoring. A pair of racing goggles, soot stained, were pushed up onto his forehead. The peacoat he wore was made of beaten mahogany leather with the collar done up in the back. He had a leather pack of dark brown, with a tightly rolled silk Worth wedding gown underneath. The familiar saber of a Victorian British Officer was strapped to the packs side while an utterly soul stealing and terrifying mask of ancient wood was slapping against its back. The figure did not look his age, his face was handsome to a fault, but hardened, bearing the deep marring of an inescapable sorrow that would be worn forever. His hair was a perfectly quaffed mane of raven curls that were grown out, covering the back of his neck. It seemed that for just a pause of time and space the universe slowed and the two met one another's eyes. Then, the youth, with a wry trickster's smirk gave the old Princess a two-finger salute. It was then, after months of chasing him from Fort Worth, to New Orleans, then across the United States to Rhode Island, that the vengeful princess, for the first time ever, finally laid eyes upon George Crawley …

Sailing by, eight feet high, on a horse as quick as dreams.

* * *

**Entr'acte Music**

"_The Lone Ranger Finale" (The William Tell Overture) – Hans Zimmer_


	6. The Red Barchetta

In the second month of the year 1912 there was a thin sheen of ice that frosted the hardened and browned manicured lawns of the Levison Estate. The sun was obscured by dark and heavy clouds that oppressed much of the light of the world. A dull and dead grey washed out the color of nature about the once picturesque scenery long maintained at the base of a plateau's seaside cliff. Here, in the dreary gloom of mid-winter, a deep and unending melancholy starched the atmosphere with a graveyard like silence that could not be broken by any one voice or whirl of machine. Life and happiness, even the simplest of joy, seemed to stand oddly still, and in its place the grandeur of the tall and mighty silhouette on the bleak horizon seemed almost haunted. Fore, now, in the absence of all that made Levinson Manor what it was, the palace to a lost world of tomorrow was now open and empty to whatever might find it hospitable to its need.

The motorcar stood idle for a long time as the white figure stood upon the dirt road. Her cerulean eyes following such a familiar pathway that wound all the way up to the plateau. She had remembered seeing it for the first time when she was very young, stepping out of the carriage to where her father and brother stood with a team of land surveyors. She remembered his smile, the way he lifted her up so that she could look through the telescope on the tripod. He gave a deep kiss into her curly ringlets as she looked. That was where it was going to be, her fairy palace, the future. Right there on top of the plateau. He put an arm around Harold's shoulder and held her closer as the two children looked out and shared their father's vision of what could be on the horizon.

Many years later, Lady Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, stood right in that same spot staring out at the majestic palatial manor born from her vision, Harold's determination, and their father's faith in his children. Tears welled on her pale and lovely face. Her supple throat tightened in the bitterly frigid gust of air, like the sleeping breath of death itself that shuttered and disturbed the landscape with a quiet despair. Her soundless sob frothed as she sputtered a sigh, her burgundy leather gloves squeaking as she gripped the pelts of her pure white coat and matching fur hat. She mourned for those days, those little moments that she knew that she could never get back. He was gone now, taken in the night, never to awaken again.

It was peaceful, they say. Mr. Levinson had kissed his wife as he slipped in bed, proposed that the house was too empty, and that they should probably have another kid. Martha, mid-sentence in a book, didn't flinch at the clap and squeeze of her rump. She agreed … but only if he'll give her a foot massage to set the mood. It was then that Mr. Levinson turned out his light and wished goodnight to an incredulous wife who smirked as she read on. It was the last conversation that the man ever had.

It had been several years now, but Cora still thought of it, of him. This man who never said no, who was utterly fascinated with a young girl as if he had never seen one before. In her mind, Cora could still recall looking up from the piano that was playing and catching the eye of Daddy, elbow propped on the doorframe, his thumb placed over his lips as he studied his prize beauty in wonder. Mr. Levinson was always a self-aware man. Whether he had always been that way, or the war had made him so, Cora could never tell. But the idea of his children, the concept of creating something that walked and talked, something that you loved and loved you back, never stopped fascinating him. She remembered the hours he spent in her bedroom, holding Edith, staring at her, pontificating to his wife how there was a quarter of them in this baby girl. Martha, two and a half decades into a marriage, only half-listened after so many years hearing a similar speech about their own children and then Mary. But it was always something that Cora would remember and cherish about her father.

The manor was built upon this fascination with these lives born from some magic inside him. It was a monument to this immaculate capture of his imagination by the hopes and dreams of something new and unique to the world born from his love for a woman he married two days after meeting her in New Orleans. After so much death seen in the worst places of fighting in Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, Mr. Levinson became a humanist, an enthusiast for life. When his cynical wife said that something shouldn't be done, he asked why. When his wife sighed, he laughed. And when that impossible thing was accomplished, she punched him in the ribs, he smacked her on the ass, and they both grinned. So, when they took that family trip to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1883, and young Cora had a moment of provenance in an obscure blueprint for a mansion of the future, her father was enchanted by her enchantment. He would provide her with this dream, because, he had to know where it would go and what it would do once it happened. His little girl had a dream and, by God, little girls with dreams were what heaven was made of.

Now, that one dream of a beautiful young girl had come, been fought for, and was accomplished. The destiny seen that one perfect day in Chicago during the World's Fair now stood by her side. A man, kind, good, and fair stood behind her, his face pressed to the back of her head. A daughter, two years a woman grown, clutching one of her arms. Her middle daughter, a year younger, but wiser, her genius, holding her other. And her baby, her beauty, her and her husband's prize gem, hugging her from behind and crying because her mama was crying. Her destiny, her fate, born from the construction of this manor, it clutched to her in the private of this cold and still late-afternoon. Here was where the journey that began when her daddy hoisted her up to look through a surveyor's scope now ended with a family gathered around her in that same spot.

It was too much money, it was too much of a hassle, and nobody even lived here anymore. Harold had wanted to shutter the manor for years, but never dreamed of asking Cora, knowing what she would say. But now the orders had come from on high, the highest power there was. No, not God, despite how she fancied herself, but from their mother. Even in the summers, since Mr. Levinson's death, she did not go to that place. Winter's in New York at San Sochi, Summers in New Orleans at Amantha Pointe, with trips to England three times a year to make sure Violet, or "That Woman" as she called her, hadn't fully corrupted 'the babies'. It had always amused Cora, as it embarrassed the girls, that they were forever referred too as 'the babies' no matter how old they were.

Levinson Manor, this place, was too near to him, her beloved. His love, his fascinations, his soul seemed to be in every room, every painting, and every sunrise that rose from the endless ocean on the horizon. Just being near this place reminded her of everything that was missing in her life, every fight, every disagreement, every admonishment for the Southern Belle being a Grade-A asshole. The longing for every kiss, the petting of her ass, and the smirks. The love notes he wrote her from across the room, to which she would send back with grammar corrections and a note for him to do better. _"You can make multi-million-dollar deals, but you can't use the right spelling of 'There' and 'Their' … don't make no damn sense, boy!"._ It was in every brick and empty minute of sacrilege that came with the silence in the deserted halls of this palace by the sea. There was no moving on, no surviving even another heartbeat as long as Levinson Manor remained on the forefront of her mind, eating her money and her heart little by little.

So, it had to go.

Being blunt, she cut off her baby girl's protests by informing the Countess of Grantham that she can reopen Levinson Manor when she starts a multi-million-dollar canned goods conglomerate of her own. Till then, Lady Cora can get her 'pretty little ass' down there to retrieve her prized possessions out of the place, because Martha was shutting it down for good. It was particularly cold, but then, without Daddy, Cora found that Martha was completely unchecked in her temperament and attitudes. Her mother's love had always been a thorny rose, and yet the woman seemed more thorn now with the rose being colored by the blood of her loved ones.

The girls had all thought their mama insane that she would not take her wedding dress, the prized pictures of her girls they gifted to her that past Christmas, nor the great sapphire that she wore upon her brow like an elven queen of old. But the woman only turned from her childhood bedroom window and told Mary, holding the Worth gown to herself in the mirror, that it would not be the last they would see of these things. Her daughter frowned as something prophetic moved soft and quick as a shadow across her mother's face. The woman took her daughter's hand and led her to the painting of Sir Lancelot hunching over the funeral barge of the Lady of Shallot. Then, with a shake of her head, Cora didn't seem to know what she had just said, or why she led Mary to the painting, as if some greater benevolent power of the universe spoke through her in that moment. Then, taking her silken wedding gown, she placed it back on the mannequin by her bedside, straightened the triple pictured frame, and led Mary out with an arm around her eldest daughter's waist.

Now, they had finally reached the end. They were the last ones out, her, Robert, and the girls. In the month of February in 1912 the locks and chains had wrapped the gilded gates. But there was nothing that the woman took with her. All the things most precious to her, birthed from the construction of the grand manor house, was leaving with her. Her husband and her girls. Fore the wealth of this temple of time was in its very prophecy. To many this place was a failed experiment, a moldering ruin to a utopia that never was, to a lost Tomorrowland. But it was only the few, or perhaps only the one, who knew that it was neither of these things. It was a palace to the very future, but not of the worlds, or society, but to a family, to a little girl with a dream. Here, outside these silent halls, in the arms of her girls and her soul mate, a father's true vision caught in the provenance of little Cora Crawley's eye had finally come to full fruition.

**FFFFFFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPPHHHHH!**

**VEEEEERRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM! **

Twenty-three years later the town's people of Newport Rhode Island felt it coming before they heard it. Like the entire world was caught in a giant vacuum. All the air, the power, and energy on a perfect day in the closing summer was sucked right out of the ether. It felt like a giant buildup of something massive, a balloon in the split-second before popping from too much mass. They all stopped what they were doing in the silence that fell like the moments after a drawn breath. People halted in the middle of the street, they walked out of shops, and looked to one another in query. But no one said a word … no one. Later, they would ponder if they could have even talked in that frozen moment between strange universes. "The New York Times" would later write that what came next was so massive that it sucked the very oxygen from the air before it happened.

Then, it came.

It rolled like thunderclouds in a hurricane racing an oncoming runaway train. The trees creaked and cracked as a blistering wind of heat chased the massive wave of chaos made of pure torment of sound. As it passed, windows shattered, the ground shook, fair concession stands were overturned, and the rumble was felt in the very base of every chest there that day. The sonic boom was an incredible phantasmal wave of terror and fear that washed over everyone and everything. Then, when the blast of heat passed, there was only silence. The cool breeze caressing their cheeks and sweated brows as the world and festivities stilled.

In the distance, away from any knowledge or memory, sheets of ancient rock exploded into the sky. For miles, large chunks of sediment crashed into the green shimmering ocean like a handful of pebbles being flung in frustration across a vast lake. Meanwhile, whitewashed stone and sheered pieces of romantic statues mounted upon manor walls rained down with destruction upon an overgrown forest below a tall cliff face. Trees toppled under the smashing thunder of falling meteorite like foundation stone, while heads of marble angelic creatures lay cratered in undergrowth. In the distance, there was a toe curling, spine tightening, sound of sliding destruction as an entire cliff face plateau fell into the waves below.

There, tipping over like the missing center of a tall wedding cake, the remains of Levinson Manner, which had a large gapping section missing, crumbled upon itself. It seemed to last an eternity, minutes taking hours, but eventually the white and gold manor tumbled with the rest of its rocky foundations into the thundering and sloshing ocean. Gone then was the beauty, the majesty, and the elegance of a place like no other in the world. It's giant domed ballroom of glimmering glass, it's collection of ancient master works of art, and the accumulated memories of an age of fantasy and wonder undreamed, lost forever into the dark fathoms below. Then, gone at last, were the combined memories and history of the last vestiges of the dreams and heartaches of rich American debutantes who crossed the ocean to marry English Lords.

And yet, somewhere, Mr. and Mrs. Levinson gave a rather charmed smirk, waiting on bated breath for what the headlines will say about it all.

The sky was crowded with debris aflame. With the entire middle section of the sprawling manor house blown out from a large warping bubble in the palatial residence. The massive explosion catapulted white chalky stone, gilded rafters, as well as priceless art pieces in every direction across the expansive estate. Everywhere one stood for a mile in every direction flaming debris smashed and crater, the shaking ground caught in great aftershocks of the subterranean explosion that was felt in some compacity throughout the entire State of Rhode Island. Falling pieces of ancient art and flaming white stone whistled like incoming shells of artillery overhead, exploding with massive clouds of dirt that rained like filthy precipitation. Their bombardment snapped tree trunks and eviscerated anything that lay under its destructive shadow.

And it was here, in this milewide kill box, there stood an ivy wrapped rotted five bar fence guarding a field of weeds that flanked a dirt road that led to Levenson Manor. All around it, limbs of mythological marble statues, red hot pieces of piping, and greened brass ceiling ornaments rented and pitted the New England Countryside in explosions of dirt and rock. Flaming stone crushed places on the once charming rustic colonial fencing.

_("The Lone Ranger Finale" (The William Tell Overture) – Hans Zimmer)_

It was in this crossfire of death and dirt that upon it came suddenly a striding shadow that thunder across the shaking earth. A black horse with white feet and star upon its brow galloped through the fiery falling of the sky and, crouched by its rider, the horse bounded gracefully and proudly over the five-bar rotted fence through the hail of dirt and debris. As the falling shower of destruction lessoned, the fence stood remarkably untouched. However, moments later, in pursuit of the mounted figure, a swanky and expensive car smashed right through the colonial era barrier. The gun metal colored vehicle was quickly followed by a convoy of black and red Ford and Chevy cars that kicked up dirt, with men in fedoras cursing and shouting as they hung out the windows.

However, the convoy was soon bottle necked when entire rectangular door of iron, that once belonged to the coal storage area of a boiler room, knifed through the hood of a car causing it to explode.

"Jesus Mary fuckin Christ, Shit!"

The air was alive with screaming objects that fell like meteorites to the ground, causing it to quake and shake. But still, darting evasively from explosions of dirt and weeds, the black horse galloped with a terrific pace across an open flat plain of tall weeds. George Crawley, giving a kick, urged the horse faster into the kill zone as the sound of honking horns bleated shrilly on the steed's heels. Rotted and weathered spectator stands, and long forgotten leisure chairs wrapped in vines and overgrowth was all that was left of a Polo Pitch.

Here, for many months, young men of class and breeding from an Empire across the sea, and fine young collegian men who bussed from Princeton and Harvard had come. Some titled with lordly names, others patron saints of nepotism, yet they all fought on the field of sportsmanship to catch the eye of Ms. Cora Levinson, and later for the affections of her young teenage daughter Lady Mary Crawley. It was also the place where, bored of a summer of bravado, Lady Mary, at the tender age of sixteen, took to horse and scored an unprecedented five goals upon her own grandpapa's pitch. They all thought that Mr. Levinson would have a heart attack from how hard he was laughing at the way 'baby girl' showed them. Though Lady Mary had never felt fully comfortable in the presence of her American grandparents, at least not in the way that Edith and Sybil would forever seem to be, the girl cherished the look of pride that her Grandpapa gave her whenever he saw his granddaughter upon horse. Being a dashing cavalier that had rode with JEB Stuart during the War of Session, the man cherished the idea that the essential equestrian mastership had not been lost and lived on in his eldest grandchild. Therefore, it was on the Polo Pitch that the audacious and beautiful Lady Mary Crawley shamed, awed, and dazzled her American cousins and suitors.

Now, many long years later, her only son, her last child, would've captured the heart of his mother had she been his peer. Fore, hitting the straight away, he and his faithful steed raced across the overgrown pitch. The automatic fire of Tommy Guns ripped through the thunder of a falling manor into the ocean. Behind and around them, jack-knifing, and fish-tailing domed cars wheeled and turned trying to cut off teenager and steed. Yet, using falling debris, and that inherited talent of equestrian arts, the skilled rider darted and sprang away from charging cars that circled and turned like metal sharks on a feeding frenzy.

It is here so noted, though he would never admit to it, but there was more than a passing resemblance to Lady Mary as he twisted and darted, with the same spirt that his own mama once had riding this very field. Fore, it was that there were very few things that Lady Mary Josephine Crawley had ever taught her son. But the one thing that she made sure he knew how to do was ride a horse. And it was then, and ever afterward, that beyond his jawline, eyebrows, and temperament of personality that it was astride a steed that he had the likeness and baring of his mother. Indeed, there was, in fact, no visible difference between Mary and George when mounted. They rode the same, they sat the same, they had the exact reflexes and instincts, and were identical even to the looks upon their faces as they rode with abandon. Thus, despite their deep hatred for one another, and very much Like their very entrails and internal organs, this was just one more thing in which estranged mother and son were a perfect, indistinguishable, match.

There was no universe in which the black horse, bred in the wild, sired by prize horses left to roam by their rich owner who put his head in the oven after the "Crash of '29", could outrun automobiles. But the skill of George Crawley inherent in Levinson blood, and forged in races across South and West Texas, as well as throughout Mexico, had him weaving and turning to avoid the circling foes. His greatest advantage, beyond the Polo Pitch being designed excessively for equestrian feats, was that his foes were greener than the overgrowth around him. Most of the gangsters, all of the street mercenaries, and much of the Shiite Zealots had been incinerated by the explosion, the rest trapped in piles of rubble that fell into the sea. And for a time, in the aftermath of the carnage of this day …

The crime rate in New York City would fall dramatically.

Now, much of the hunters that wheeled and slung dirt around were the younger members of the crime syndicate, novices trying to get into the criminal organization. Most had only just learned to drive, while others who knew, only had experience in the city. Their tires and the makes of their boss's high-end vehicles were not meant for off-road expeditions. And though they could outmatch the young adventurer in speed, they lacked the mobility and nimble turning of a well-bred mustang lassoed in the wild, and 'green broke' by its new master. The black and white stallion was at its peak vitality, seemingly tireless, and unhesitating to the pull of the reigns. The young horse was the perfect melding of obedience and wild independence in the hand of a vastly superior horseman.

Thus, the jack-knifing and fish tailing vehicles, driven by teenagers, that pursued George found themselves throwing axels and crashing into flaming debris. In their zeal and inexperience, they even crashed into one another trying to corner the racer who darted around and between oncoming cars. It was a deadly game of dodge, requiring extreme concentration, and no small amount of luck. Shrill beeping of horns and wild sprays of machine gun bullets filled the air with chaos. While, still, all around them, more debris fell with explosions of dirt that obscured vision of both rider and driver. However, in a flash of intuition, and possession of instinct, George charged across the now mostly destroyed Polo Pitch in which Lady Mary had once made a name for herself in New York Society.

He pulled the reign hard, hearing the roar of an engine nipping at his horse's hoofs. With a spring, the stallion vaulted over a piece of an overlook balcony that had been in one of the art galleries. Behind him there was a cringing noise of screeching steel as the rebar of the concrete base caught the pursuing car's bumper, tearing it off, it's iron impaling and ensnaring the front of the expensive Ford. Seeing an opening, George gave another kick to his horse, sending it into a hard and frenzied speed. Ahead of him two cars, one black and the other red, crashed head to head. Their chrome bumpers locked, and their hoods smoking and crushed together. Yet, in the wreckage, between the two, was a 'V' shape where the two cars met. It was small, but just wide enough for the black and white horse to vault through daylight and out of the madness of the motor-derby that had encircled him. It was just in time, as he sprang free, a Packard smashed into the two disabled cars in vein pursuit.

Free from the chaos, the rider streaked off the Polo Pitch and back on to the road. But he was far from being out of danger when he noticed that a new convoy was rushing after him. These cars were not flashy, but plain, dependable for the terrain, and bore diplomatic markings. Amateur hour was over, now had come the real enemies. Each door bore the crest of the King of Iran, and every driver and man inside wore a Turk's fez. Some bore burn scars on the faces, other wore eyepatches, and a few had old lacerations. These were former Imperial Soldiers of the Old Ottoman Empire, descendants of the feared Janissaries of the old Sultans- the personal bodyguards of the Pamuk household. They weren't the rabble of uneducated gangsters, greedy mercenaries, or mindless Islamic Zealots. These were true killers, born and bred, and they would stop at nothing to avenge their old master and restore honor to the most prestigious household of their desiccated Caliphate Empire.

The lead cars poured on the speed and spread out, traveling three abreast on the gully trench. One tore over the open dirt road. The other two on the flanks climbed onto the slanted ground on either side. The car to the left skimmed the old colonial era fence, while the other lay parallel to the tree line of the old forest upon the Levinson Estate. Their formation left the young adventurer nowhere to run or maneuver. They came on him quickly, men wearing fezzes hung out the windows firing Walther pistols. Hearing the bullets screaming past his ear, George crouched his horse, and began to veer to the right. From his side he dashingly slipped the Ray Gun from its Mexican holster and pivoted back. He knew he didn't have the ammunition to fight off the vanguard, but a few well-placed shots might break up their formation and give him a few more seconds.

**THUEM!**

**THUEM!**

The noises of the futuristic revolver rented the cool air with a powerful thunder that was intimidating. His first shot ripped away the left side mirror of the right car, knocking the Janissary hanging out the window from the vehicle, sending him tumbling gruesomely into the ground. His final shot burst through the window of the center car, hitting the driver right where fez met brow. The back of the man's scull exploded over the occupied backseat. The center car swerved, catching the side of the left car, before colliding with the right, driving it into tall unkempt trees of ancient origin to the New England countryside. Seeing that George was now mounting the sloping ground, angling to slip into the woods, the last of the convoy's lead cars made a push to desperately cut the young rider off before he made it to cover. The blood pounding driver hammered on the horn in adrenaline, while his passengers screamed for him to watch out. But it was too late to turn back. They descended the sloping ground, drifted across the road, and climbed the other side of the small green gully.

**SHHRRRUMMPHHH!**

They had just about caught George Crawley when the youth vaulted his mustang over a suspicious overgrowth of ivy and moss. When he landed the saber rattled upon his back and the mask of the Necromancer plunked hollowly on his leather pack. But as he charged into the dark and dense woods there was a scream of metal tearing. Fore, unbeknown to the Turks, there was a large log that had been lying in that same spot for fifty long years, a log that Robert Crawley had once sat Ms. Cora Levinson upon to tell her all about Downton Abbey for the first time. Now, all these years later, it's mossy, near fossilized, nubs caught the undercarriage of a Chrysler and yanked it out, sending a part of the car rolling in the woods while the axel and the bottom frame remained caught on the log.

Somewhere in the spirit of the forest, caught in the lay lines of time and space, there was a tweeny girl who sat on a bicycle on the country path through the forest. The group of other guests had long since passed her by. She was terribly embarrassed. They had waited for quite a while for her to catch the hang of the thing, but somehow, she was getting worse. So, the party said that they would continue on and wait for her to get there. It had been an hour since, and still Lady Sybil Crawley at the tender age of thirteen still hadn't gotten any better at riding a bicycle. She sat on the side of the path with her older sister Edith, who was ordered by their mama to stay behind with her. But they weren't in any hurry. Sybil had grown frustrated, cried, screamed into the forest, and sat morosely down. Watching Edith riding languid circle around her baby sister pensively, Sybil claimed that they shouldn't go to their grandmamma's picnic anyway. Edith told her that it would be rude. To which her baby sister replied that their grandmother was rude herself.

"_Look at this place! Think … we're in a whole different country, Edith! Who knows what we'll find?! Let's go exploring, forget Grandmamma, Mama, and Mary's High Society lunch!" _

The idea of avoiding the mocking and snickered judgement from the New York Society guests as the two girls, shamefully, trudged to the picnic hours later appealed to Edith. The two sisters were contemplating where they should go first when a hotly offended Mary came peddling down the path. She had just sat down with a future Harvard honors graduate with interest in English investment, particularly English wives, when she had been sent by Lady Grantham to check on her two younger sisters. And when she heard of their plans to ditch, Mary wouldn't have it. Such a snub would certainly reflect poorly on mama, and more importantly, on Mary herself. Thus, Edith was now more determined to skip the picnic.

An argument started, then raged, before Mary physically grabbed Edith to drag her back to the picnic. To this, Sybil jumped on Mary's back, a thirteen-year-old girl trying to break up the altercation. Soon, by Sybil's weight or Mary's surprise, all three girls tumbled down the forest path. Landing on the other side of a small hill, the girls found themselves, suddenly, surrounded. From out of every burrow and hollow of tree came the shuffling and skittering feet of an entire colony of fluffy and wild bunnies. The tiny, floppy eared mammals slowly closed in curiously on the violent arrival of these new strange creatures in bonnets and sundresses. Each side of 'first contact' was nervous than the other, fore it was the first time that any of the Crawley girls had come into contact with any sort of wildlife. Mary loved to hunt, but she had never seen anything up close that was alive. She tried to stop Sybil, who immediately walked up to meet the brown fuzzy ball that hopped up to investigate these intruders. They could've had diseases, they could've been violent, after all, this was America … they all carried guns for a reason. But when Sybil picked up the bunny and held it to her chest, the beast of Mary's nightmares vibrated warmly in her arms.

Suddenly, two hours later, when Mr. Levinson and Lady Grantham found the girls, they were all sitting on the forest floor, giggling, talking, and petting bunnies. Father and daughter exchanged knowing looks and slipped away unnoticed. The next day, the girls came back with Mr. Levinson. Their grandfather put up a sign to inform everyone that "Floppyburg" was located down this sloping incline and that it was private property overseen by the Crawley sisters. Taking Sybil in one arm and Edith in the other, he swore to the girls that he would make sure that no one hunted or killed any of their bunnies. Then, providing them his pocketknife, each of his grandchildren carved their initials onto the sign as signature of ownership. There, for near thirty years, the sign had stood as monument to a cherished childhood adventure one perfect summer long ago.

**RATATATATATATATATAT! **

The booming sound of repeater fire from Tommy Guns strafed through the dense tree line of the old forest. Leaves and twigs from tree limbs rained down, shuffling and rattling as bullets tore through wild canopies and twisted trunks. Through the foliage screens random sprays of nine-millimeter automatic gunfire riddled a long forgotten and overgrown forest path. The random and uneven traveling line of machine gun fire sent noises of warped ricochets through the hollow ancient woods. Its concentration exploding the rotted and weathered sign covered in ivy that marked where "Floppyburg" once stood. As it disintegrated, a galloping horse thundered just behind the rail fire of a convoy of former Imperial soldiers in Chryslers. They shot indiscriminately into the forest at an unseen enemy they were trying to keep pace with blindly. The snorting of the energetic horse echoed hollowly through the dense forest as its hoofs trampled the Crawley girl's initials for good. George raced along the bicycle path that was now barely visible. All around him bullets ricocheted and cut through the close and sullen air inches from his face that was revealed through thin beams of day light that peaked through the tree canopies. From outside, upon the road the roaring engines of the convoy came in stereo through dense woods.

They hadn't had him cornered yet, but his spot was precarious. If he pulled ahead, even at the slightest, he would be in their kill zone. But if he hung back, they'd be waiting for him at the clearing when he got out of the woods. In days past there might have been walking groups of guests taking in the natural splendor of the summertime country or bicycling on a planned excursion to some wonderful views of nature. But nowa mustang raced a firing squad. Its rider aimed his revolver at the lead car as he galloped full charge down the overgrown path. The motors were lined up single file, passengersides adjacent to the tree line. Two ex-soldiers hung out windows with Tommy Guns, giving fire discipline to cover maximum effectiveness. If they weren't tying to kill him, George would've been impressed with their competence as a fighting team. But the young heir to the House of Grantham had more than enough experience in combat himself after nine years. And if there was one thing he knew as a Science Pirate's apprentice and learned as a ranger … it was how to break up marshal effectiveness.

**THUEM!**

It was a one in twenty-five shot that was fired at passing dark silhouettes through a thick tree screen. But the young marksman had been instructed in sharpshooting by Allan Quartermain, the greatest of Huntsmen in the world. And such an education was in tandem with the teaching of the secret and fierce warriors of the Imakandi of Darkest Africa who had trained a young boy's senses to adapt his aim while in constant motion. Thus, the rifle caliber bullet pierced leaf, avoided branches, and broke the back window of thelead car. It struck the back quarter of the driver's head. His dead weight on the break caused the second car to collide into the back bumper of the first at full speed. The trailing third car just barely threaded the accident, nearly spinning out, giving up ground as the driver wrestled for control. As a result, with great anger, they lost George to the shadows of the old forest.

At the edge of the tangled woods was a large clearing that shouldered a wheat field and a stone wall. These markers separated the Levinson Estate from the intermediate small farms that surrounded the larger properties of the exuberantly rich that had turned Newport Rhode Island from an obscure rural New England town into a once iconic and mythical utopia of extravagant wealth and finery. In the clearing, among the waving tall yellow grass, there stood a singularly tall tree that stood alone at the end of the path. Its trunk was broad, its branches large, and its leaves countless. It was as ancient as trees came, knowing hundreds upon hundreds of years, when this clearing had once been a part of the forest, before Colonial settlers had cleared the land for farming and ship building in the seventeenth century. Yet, somehow, by mercies now forgotten to the knowledge of man, this tree at the heart of the old forest had been left untouched. And many centuries later, it had become the favored spot of the Levinson Family.

It was during a lunch break while surveying the land that Mr. Levinson and Harold had found it. A perfect sight of the rolling green hills near town and the open ocean upon the horizon. When Cora came to visit the construction site, it had immediately become her favorite spot in the entire world. After the building of Levinson Manor, many of Ms. Cora's advanced lessons on art, history, and literature by the best tutors that money could buy were taken at this spot, under the comforting shade of the ancient tree. On many countryside outings with guests this was the final destination where many picnics and teas were had. In this very place on so many sunny afternoons had great memories been accumulated. Here had been where Lady Mary Crawley had taken her first steps as a baby. It was where Lady Sybil had said "mama" for the very first time while cradled in Lady Grantham's arms as she rocked her under the shade. And it was on the lower branch, where a then Ms. Cora Levinson sat in the mornings to watch the sunrise from out of the ocean horizon. And it was on one such of these mornings that the lovely teenage beauty realized that she was wholly and unequivocally in love with Captain Robert Crawley, Lord of Downton.

On a frigid evening in a February of 1912, the special place seeming dream-like, crusted with shimmering ice that looked like crystal upon the gleaming glade. Lady Grantham asked that the chauffeur stop the motor. There, she asked her husband and daughters to get out of the car. Wrapped in fur coats and blankets, Lady Cora led her family to the tree where it all started and ended. There, from inside her coat, she produced her father's old bowie knife from his days as a Rebel Cavalier. She handed it to Mary, who was shocked, but Cora told her to make her mark upon the trunk as big as she liked. In succession, each of her daughters did the same, carving upon the ancient trunk. Then, at last, taking Robert's hand upon hers which gripped the knife, the soulmates carved their own symbol above their daughters'. A single tear fell down her lovely face as she pulled all of them around her and looked at that one special place. Mary had teased that their mama felt these things so strongly, yet she only smirked when her mother wiped a tear from Mary's own eye. Now, no matter what this land would become, it would always be theirs …

The Crawley family's special place.

Nearly thirty years later, the carvings remained and endured. Yet, their only son passed that place without a glance. But still, and for only a split second, the tree itself seemed to groan and creak in some phantom familiarity as George Crawley's shadow crossed the affectionate symbols that would remain till the breaking of the world. There was something of a blessing in the old noises it gave as the valiant youth galloped past the sacred marker, his horse giving a gallant spring over the mossy and ivy-covered stone wall beside it and into the overgrown wheat field.

The Depression didn't come immediately for the farmers as it had for the many Millionaires that staked their claim in their rows of mansions and manors by the seaside. But eventually, the squeeze, the prices, forced many of the New England farmers to sell up and find work in town. The banks- or what was left of them- bought up all the land they could. Without pity or remorse, they locked the old deeds in dusty vaults and forgot they owned the very soil turned and cared for by generations of men and women, passed down from the very first settlers upon this golden land. The field that George charged across with a trail of dust behind his steed's fleet hooves was golden and green, stalks of wild wheat mixed with weeds.

What had been thought of as a sacred birth right, land that was in the blood of generations of a mixture of Dutch and Welsh ancestry, was long forgotten. The golden swaying stalks of stray seedlings of wheat were but malnourished phantoms of better days, losing ground daily to weeds. Some said that there was something supernatural, other-worldly, about the Depression that blighted humanity. Like some foul spirit made of noxious poisons that fumigated the spirit of the world, it seeped into everything, leaving nothing untouched or spoiled. But harder still was to look upon an empty wheat field, lost, unused, when so many died of starvation daily as the slow plague of despairing anguish which cast its shadow over the West like a phantasmal plutonian hand.

Beyond the rolling hills of abandoned farm fields lay the town of Newport Rhode Island. Despite the entire community on the brink of desperation, having lost both employment from rich estates by the sea, which had gone under in a matter of hours in 1929, and now the old farms falling one by one, there was still a jolly fair that was planned. Whether it was a last gasp effort to invite investors to see that Newport was still a viable place to do business, or just to buck up the citizenry's hope for new beginnings, they had spent the last of the city coffers to make this day special. Reporters from New York and Boston had come, gotten there by hook or crook by big promises. And there was no bigger selling point than the kicking off the Senatorial bid of local politician James M. Pendergrass. There were games, concessions, and a directive for the local police to keep the 'less than clean' members of the town away. Pendergrass had been working for weeks with the mayor to give a showman's flare to the entire production. Having been the son of one of the many extravagantly rich families who vacationed in the resort town during the summer in their beach mansion, he had a certain fondness for Newport … or at least that was how the speech was supposed to go. But at the end of it, just in time, a locomotive would pull into the old station right behind him, bearing his campaign slogan **"A vote for Pendergrass is one for the mass"** upon the side of it.

It was a plan that a wayfaring stranger had overheard at the combined cafe and general store counter one morning as the mayor and Pendergrass discussed plans. Only once did the older politician notice the teenage adventurer. Considering himself at the head of a charging youth movement, the Senatorial Candidate asked the handsome wanderer what he thought of his campaign slogan. The youth, unsympathetic and antagonistic to the man's politics as well as put off by the fake image of a fellow descendent of an American Heiress, asked with flippant poignancy what the slogan even meant? Insulted and infuriated by the chuckles of counter jockey and checker playing old men, the politician asked in a tone of dismissive condescension if the kid shouldn't be getting off to school?

"_Why …?"_ The kid asked as he paid for his coffee and pastry- _"Sure didn't do you any good."_ The handsome figure gave a hauntingly familiar smirk that cut deeply as he left with a jingle of the business's door bells and more mocking laughter at the seething politician's expense. The man was suddenly attacked by the image of a Polo Pitch on the Levinson Estate where he played goalkeeper on one of the most humiliating days of his life.

**BBBBBRRRROOOOOPPPHHH!**

**BBBBBRRRROOOOOPPPHHH!**

Now, several days later, the youth galloped across the field at a terrific lick to intercept a two-car train that was steaming steadily across tracks that ran adjacent next to the wheat field. At least one thing went right that day, and it came in the form of a train running on time. Thick black smoke plumed out of the black engine as the engineer sounded the whistle to alert spotters of its coming to inform Pendergrass to begin his speech. The train was of an older design, picked special by the politician, hoping to sell his message through nostalgia of a simpler New England. It was hoped that spotting the old familiarity of the certain model of train pulling into the old station would endear him to the press, if not so much the masses whose name he used but did not allow to attend his fair.

George sped to the end of the field, moving swiftly through taller stalks by the edge of the train tracks which were elevated by a long dirt and gravel path. Turning the reins on the horse, the adventurer pulled the stallion alongside the moving train. Putting forth all the speed and vitality that was left in the young mustang, they passed the aged baggage car painted with chipped and weathered red. As they came upon the passenger car, with new body of blue paint with a white horizontal stripe, the youth began to unhook bridle and saddle. The snorting beast, who had not faltered once in their deadly race against an army of cold-blooded killers, seemed to quicken its pace at the feeling of the riding gear being removed, tasting freedom given gratefully. With a new burst of acceleration of sudden freedom, they caught the black iron engine at the head of the locomotive.

Checking his watch, the old black man with thick white sideburns pondered if he should pour more coal into the fire. It seemed like a lot to ask for, especially for no pay. Not only was he called short notice with Sammy out sick with a blonde-haired flu named Minnie who was gonna eat that ole'boy alive, now he was required to 'hit the post' at such a specific time. It wasn't that he couldn't do that, after forty years as a conductor there wasn't anything that he couldn't do with a train. But he wasn't particularly in the mood for that 'cute shit'. Once he got in sight of the station he would have to duck. It seemed that Pendergrass's nostalgic narrative didn't include a negro conductor, neither did his policies. It only proved that a man can outrun Ole Jim Crow, but the world was still filled with assholes. It was days like this that the old man seriously thought today would be the day he took his chances with this here Depression …

Especially when he looked to his right.

Thundering in pace with the engine was a black horse with white feet and star upon his brow. It was unsaddled and unbridled as it galloped stride for stride with the train. There, standing upon the bareback of the horse was a teenager. The handsome youth had grown out black curls that covered his ears and neck. He wore a pea coat of beaten mahogany colored leather. The denim pants he wore were tucked into tall and supple black leather boots. His hardened and haunted cerulean eyes bore twin laceration wounds across the right one. Upon his back was a fine pack of supple leather, with a sheathed saber harnessed to its side and some sort of mask hollowly slapping against the back where it was attached to the clasp. The old man watched in muted shock as the youth in question balanced precariously on the back of a racing horse, as if he was some damn Indian in a "Buffalo Bill's: Wild Western Show". In his hand was a saddle and bridle that once belonged to Lady Mary Crawley. He watched as the youth leapt off the back of the horse and caught the engineer's handrail. In the distance he saw the mustang break away, running freely into the overgrown field where it slowed to an exhausted canter. Suddenly with a loud clank of boot soles on metal grating, the youth pulled himself into the train engine.

With a smooth draw, the teenager slipped a futuristic and sleek revolver from its Mexican holster.

"Something I can help you with, son?"

It might have been the muddy coffee he had to suck down to clear his head of the cheap ass Corn Liquor he drank last night. It might have been waking up in the one room hovel that he rented outside of town since Sheenah finally heeded her dead momma's words and found herself a man who made something of himself before she got "old". Not that she was dragging her tits alongside that suitcase he bought for her in Tupelo when they got married all them years ago. For whatever reason when that handsome young man pulled his 'magic gun' on the old engineer, he didn't feel anything at all.

George was momentarily shocked, even sparing a beat to look down to make sure that he was indeed holding his intended weapon.

"Listen, kid …" The old man reassured him. "I see what you got- fancy as hell. But I ain't supposed to be here today, and I ain't getting paid sure shit enough for this. So, if you gonna do me, do me, alright … or get the hell outta here with all that Flash Gordon nonsense." The man sighed checking his watch again out of habit. There was a sudden look of amusement on the adventurer's face as he observed the detached old black man who scratched his whiskers with a soot stained work glove in disinterest. With a gunfighter's twirl he holstered his weapon back.

"If I shoot you, whose gonna drive this piece of shit?" George asked reaching into his coat.

"Them's the breaks, Desperado." The old man grunted in acknowledgement at the kid's predicament.

"Indeed …"

Suddenly the sound of flicked metal and the gleam of something metallic spun at him. The old man turned and caught what the kid smoothly flipped at him against his chest. When he looked into his stained kaki glove the train engineer saw something, he thought he might not never see again. It was a genuine, preserved, Silver Eagle coin. He didn't even know they were in circulation anymore. But somehow, holding it, he had never felt so lucky before. Fore, though they carried no intrinsic value anymore. Their rarity made them priceless to coin collectors and shops all around New England. There was no way any such establishment, rabid for such exclusivity of an item, would refuse to do business. It was things such as this that could turn the engineer's luck around since his wife left him. The man turned, dumb founded, to find an unreadable look on George's face. Clearly the kid didn't know what he had, or perhaps, having been in the area for near a month, knew exactly what it was and worth. Suddenly, with silver coin in hand, the idea of ducking to avoid a crowd of ignorant assholes from New York and Boston in their fancy duds was a thing of the past. The old man put his conductor's hat on straight.

"What's on your mind, boss?" The engineer asked.

"Right through town, three miles outside, past North Beach, to the cliffs." George answered.

"On the way …"

**RATATATATATATATATA **

The engineer's compartment was awash with showers of sparks and warped ricocheting of bullets that bounced off the black iron locomotive. Quickly, the youth grabbed the old man and ducked behind the thick iron side of the compartment. All around them machine gun rounds played a round of tennis from floor to bolted ceiling, ripping a hanging map of the railroad junctions from the wall and eviscerating the timetable ledger into a snowy wonderland of shredded paper. George quickly drew the Ray Gun again and peaked out from cover. He saw that the last car in the Pamuk convoy, which had barely escaped the pile up his shot from the woods provided, had come back to finish the job. He saw a mustached man with an eyepatch, fez, and bleeding mouth hanging out the window with a Tommy Gun in hand. When he returned to cover, George snapped open the cylinder of his revolver. Immediately all six cartridges sprang out of the cylinder. He caught them all mid-air with one all-encompassing snatch of his hand. Quickly he picked out the used shells, placing an unused one between his teeth as he reached into his coat pocket.

"Here, here, take it! Take it back!" The old man quickly tried to press the Silver Eagle back into the teenager's chest. "I don't sign up for this shit!" he snapped, ducking as another spray of nine millimeters pinballed around his cabin and tattering the banner on the side of the train. George gave the man a Lady Mary like side-eye while reloading.

"Come on, Pops, where's your sense of adventure?" He asked facetiously with a rifle shell still between his teeth.

"Runnin with the piss down m'damn leg, boy!" He shouted over the gunfire.

The youth removed the previously unused cartridge between his teeth and placed it back in the last slot in the cylinder. "I'll take it back if you want … but it's not gonna get you out of this, old man." George snapped the revolver back closed with a flick of his wrist.

"And you are?!" The engineer shouted at the youth. To this, the adventurer only gave a grimly arrogant smirk of youth as he twirled his gun with a tight expert spin.

"Keep her steady and watch my things …" The kid crouched to his feet.

Slowly, he turned his head to the fine pack of leather that the youth shrugged off and placed on the ruined mess of a desk. There he saw what the youth was talking about. In that moment, in the heat of the burning furnace, and the terror of gunfire … there were no words. He could not describe it if it was asked of him, not a feature, not a color. All he remembered, felt, was a terror unlike anything he had ever felt before.

The engineer was overwhelmed with these terrible visons from the single glance into the blank eye slits of a tribal mask that gazed sightlessly at him from across the cabin.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah … no, no, no if, how, or buts from me, Desperado."

When George broke cover he looked out to the Chrysler trailing after the train. His gut jerked when he saw that they had pulled along side the old baggage car. An old Janissary was trying to climb out of the back seat from the driver's side window and into a door that someone had already forced open in the old train car. But before the youth could react, he was driven back by machine gun bullets from the old imperial providing covering fire from the passenger's seat. When his spray ended, George pealed off and fired a single round at the fezzed Turk. The rifle bullet landed dead center in the man's chest, blowing a hole through dress tie, vest, and shirt of his suit. A spray of sinew watered the back nine of the empty field as he fell backward over the door window, half dragging awkwardly through the weeded farm field. As result of the intimidating sound of the Ray Gun, the Chrysler driver tugged on the wheel evasively in memory of the last two drivers. The flinch caused the car to overturn on the bumpy and uneven ground. As a result, one of the final remaining Turks was caught mid-climb out of the window and onto the train. For a long moment the old imperial dangled from the banner on the baggage car, his feet dragging next to the tracks. But eventually he fell, ripping down part of the banner …

His blood mired upon the red, white, and blue paper as both were sucked under the train's tracks.

Suddenly, something moved sinisterly inside his mind. The world fell into a deep shadowy veil and time stood frozen. In that interminable stillness he heard a velvet voice of finely crafted words being spoken with foul foundations in the structure of the language. He did not understand what it meant, there was few who could, or would dare. But it was communicated through images that flashed through memory in a bass whispering of one's cynical desires and expedient fantasies shown in vindication of passionate moments of hatred and anger. His mind rushed with residual phantoms of small satisfactions, scratched itches, or the fleeting understandings of what it might feel like for that kind of absolution. The spectral images of Lady Mary Crawley in a jail cell, An Iranian Princess impaled on his grandfather's saber … temptations of wish fulfillment at his fingertips. But for a price, always a price, less than shown, but more than revealed. Suddenly, in these foul whisperings of an ancient evil language, he realized what it was he was hearing. He whirled around quickly to find the engineer. The old man was soaked with sweat, in his hands was George's pack. The man's eyes were stricken like dented metal, his body shaking in terror, and yet he reached out for the tribal mask who called to him in a deep whispered voice.

It knew his name, it knew where he lived, it knew his momma's name, where his daddy had worked. It was a voice as smooth as Alabama Lightning, talking like Shakespeare wished he could write, and all of it in his head. It reminisced with him about that time he hit that Jackson boy in anger with a piece of an old fence … and how he died two weeks later from some brain aneurysm. It recalled the time his cousin Alice was staying over from Starkville, looking so damn fine … he couldn't stop himself from following her to the outhouse. Or that time he got drunk while Sheenah started going off about how her sister's man was some bellhop down in New York and he was out here shoveling coal in trains … next thing he knew she was on the floor with a yellowing shiner.

In the voice, in the visions, it painted a picture of a life, of a soul, that the man did not recognize. His heart grew heavy with sadness, his mind weakened with a tremendous guilt. He could not escape the spotted transgressions of fifty-seven years of a life, the sins blaring and blinding till they were all he could see, till they were all that made up a man. Then, he was filled with torment, with anger, and hatred. The figure mastered and warped by the foulness of the accusations of the persecutions of his prosecutor. The intensity of the Necromancer's dread ancient dark powers bleeding the light of divinity, stripping the soul, and leaving nothing but an empty and mindless slave filled with scorn by the dark and terror of the holy light. Then, in this torment and suffering he was enthralled to evil's will, ever baring a bitter hatred for it as he bore a deep hatred for himself. For the voice called him to the void, to let go, for he surely did not deserve to live. Relief could only be found in the nothingness, to serve that which he was already apart of and yet did not know. The lightening of his pain, of his suffering in these foul sins could only be given by the shadow of the dreaded figure that welled deeply in his mind, taking over its faculties.

"Pops, put that down …" George's alert but calm warning with a hand out stretched, was like a man reasoning with a person holding an entire case of Nitro above his head.

Tears were flowing from the man's eyes. "I … I can't … it hurts, don't it? It … hurts." He sputtered a sob. "She kept saying that, but I kept on going … I kept on going!" He shook his head. "She was like a big … big sister … but we ain't no know better." He shook his head reaching under the mask for the clasp.

George immediately lifted his weapon and pointed it at the old engineer. "This is your final warning … get back!" He gritted his teeth. The voice was getting louder, the shadows danced in the gloom of a world veiled from light. It was chanting, manic, like the rattling of a pulley as a rope runs through it to hoist a topsail to catch the wind. It was a waterfall of sweet words with rotted taste bending and hammering at the depressed old man's enraptured mind.

"I got to make it stop, kid!" He sobbed; his eyes squeezed shut. "She's hurt, she'd done hurtin, and she needs it to stop, for me to stop …" The engineer cried. "Ain't I a man?!" He sobbed. "Ain't I a man?!" He roared. "I ain't no animal …" In his mind his cousin Alice was crying into the wood, slamming it hard with a fist, she didn't want to do it anymore. But he kept going. In desperation, the old man grabbed the mask to yank it free in order to save the girl from himself.

"I GOT TO STOP, I GOT TO STOP!"

**BLAM**

**BLAM**

Bloody sinew exploded as the locomotive was washed from the exit wound of the two bullets that pierced the back of the engineer's head. With a final gasping death cry, the old man fell limply to the floor. George's pack and the mask of the Necromancer clattered upon the iron floor with a rattle of Robert's saber. For a long beat George stood there with his father and aunt's revolver in hand. He looked down at it, thinking, for just a split second, that the mask had won. That he would find smoke sauntering from the barrel and know that he had finally lived up to his greatest fear … that he had killed an innocent over the evil artifact. His mind flashed to that Halloween Night in New York; a room filled with bloody dead old knickerbockers around a terrified naked young mother. He was in the priestess's drawing room in her bayou house, the Lily of New Orleans gasping as he stood with a the same smoking weapon in the doorway.

But the Ray Gun still had five shots in the cylinder.

**BLAM**

Dangling from atop the adjacent opening of the old engine was a black gloved hand in the sleeve of a matching overcoat. George barely had time to make out a face, before he saw the glint of the figure's Luger pistol. He gave a defensively evasive somersault, rolling out of the way of the stray shot. In a smooth motion, he grabbed up Lady Mary's old saddle and lifted it like a shield on one arm as three more rounds were fired from the Austrian made weapon. With gritted teeth, and a prayer of luck, the fine saddle of boiled and reinforced leather took the blows. The pummel and cantle were ripped off in impact, while the thick seat stopped the last nine-millimeter slug dead. Rolling with the blows, George countered, lifting his weapon and firing. Out of instinct, in what he could only imagine was some subconscious fear of what happened to the engineer, his shot struck his enemy's Lugar, instead of his enemy himself. The sound of ringing metal and a pained curse echoed from the ceiling of the engine. Quickly the shadowy figure with leather gloves pulled himself back to the roof.

George's aim followed him, but he stopped just short of pulling the trigger. In any other circumstance his cartridges could pierce any surface, but he wasn't willing to test the theory on boilermaker iron. Throwing his teenage mama's destroyed saddle away, he chased the thumping running footsteps of boots upon the roof of the old engine. Quickly he sprang for the back entrance, throwing open the old brass door. There he planted a foot on the rail car latch that connected the box cars to the engine. He quickly fired when he saw a figure in a long black overcoat leap across to the roof of the passenger car. He almost had him, his bullet audibly ripping the trailing tails of the fancy coat.

"Damn …"

Going back inside the engine, he cursed in frustration. He had noticed that the luggage cart door had already been opened by the time he engaged with the final car of Turks. With self-admonishment George growled at his stupidity for not realizing that there must have been at least one assassin left. With the situation unfolding rapidly in his head, the youth stepped forward, pulling levers, and shoveling two quick loads of coal into the furnace. The train began to speed up as directed. Once he had the right pace on the dials, the boy went to grab his pack. But he halted when he saw that what was left of the old engineer was atop of it.

He turned the old man over, pushing him off his things. The gruesome sight did not take him by surprise or disturb him, instead, it only embittered his heart with a hurtful kind of sadness. It was a sorrow tinged with a frustrated anger at the sight of such waste of something precious, like the accidental dribble of water into the sand of a long desert odyssey. The youth picked up the Silver Eagle that lay at the man's side and clutched it in his hand, putting his closed fist under nose with an angry sigh. The truth of the matter was that the old man's final moments were agonizing, tormented, and filled with terror. And even when George placed his fist over the engineer's heart and lightly pounded it in affinity it did not make it any better.

Looking down, he saw that the old man's blood stained the mask as it lay sightlessly gazing up at the ceiling. It seemed sated, elated, wearing the blood upon it as a lion does the gore of its prey after a successful hunt. The truth of what happened in the poor old man's life was lost in the grey of the human experience. He did not force his cousin, but she cried, and he didn't stop … but only at first. But an older man's memory of the trauma of a crying older girl during two youths' very first-time having sex, scared him, left himself vulnerable. He had punched his wife … but only after she had struck him three times with a pot. But his drunkenness made him unsure of one solitary incident that happened so early in a thirty-five-year marriage. And that Jackson boy was nearly knocked out by the piece of fencing … but a brain aneurysm was an excuse given by the doctor after the boy was killed while being hit in the head by a group of teenagers throwing beer bottles, one of which was the doctor's own son.

The evil of the mask, of the Necromancer trapped within, was not in the power of the supernatural, but in his understanding of the power of words to the human spirit. Fore, this demon of the ancient world derived power from compliance to his will through shame and the vanity of virtue. Indeed, with the magnification of a single moment, and the twisting of words, it might manipulate honey to venom, finding in any man or woman a single moment of darkness, of regret, and burn them with the sun's own rays through its magnifying glass. For all man sins and all man regrets, and here was where he was vulnerable to evil's call. There was no repentance, no forgiveness, only the void, where the Necromancer ruled all with evil eyes piercing shadow, flesh, and spirit.

With hatred, George watched as the old engineer's blood slowly absorbed into the mask till it was if it had never been there at all.

The boy's pack jangled as he slipped it over his shoulder. He pocketed the silver coin, looking out to see the green hills approaching. He pulled another leaver to set the train course before moving on. When he opened the brass door again, he looked up, checking both sides of the engine roof. Seeing it clear, he leapt down onto the latch, balancing across to the railing of the front of the passenger's car. Sidling against the door frame, he peaked inside the window to find motionless and empty aisles of seats. In that moment he knew what was waiting above. He steeled himself with a sigh, clenching his teeth. Then, he turned to the service ladder and began to ascend.

The cool air of pre-autumn was much colder and biting atop a train that was going a faster speed than what it was meant to while approaching a town. From the elevated height one could see a good deal more of the charming countryside once so cherished by those with of New York Society. In the distance, large boulders were still cascading down in rockslides from the demolished plateau where Levinson Manor once stood, the marvel of a now lost age. The mid-day sun glimmered off open ocean that covered the approaching horizon, making it seem a field of sapphires. While just beyond the approaching hills of empty farmland the white steeple of The Trinity Church could be seen towering over the coastal New England town. And taking it all in was a lone figure that stood with his coat tails fluttering in the wind like a cape. His back was to the warry glance of the younger man that aimed the barrel of his revolver at the figure. Slowly, cautiously, George mounted the top of the passenger car and walked forward toward his distracted enemy.

"Such a strange place …" The figure said pensively. His voice was accented, musical, soothing in an oddly sophisticated way that made one believe that he wrote music or novels of some great importance to philosophy. "Acres of land of every sort, all beautiful in its own way …" There was something wistful in his voice. "And yet …" He turned in distressed puzzlement.

"They consider Clam Chowder as a signature food."

The man that faced the adventurer was tall, slender as a bow, with a sleek dancer's frame. His movements were elegant, cat-like in their effortless plotting. The way that his long black overcoat with red satin lining moved about his frame was loose and theatrical in its rippling in the rushing cold air. In his leather clad hand, he held an aqua colored scimitar scabbard that had golden Islamic embroidery designs. The flutter of very fine and glistening chocolate curls sauntered in the rushing air of a speeding train. The young man in question was fairer faced than his forbearers, with a peachy tan that was delicate. But his looks were strikingly beautiful, with a clean-shaven effeminate face. There were depictions of his likeness found throughout the many masterworks of paintings depicting the divinity of angels upon many interpretations of holy events captured in art. Yet, there was something feral, savage hidden in the depths of his hazel eyes. In his fair face was the echoes of the first sparks of Lucifer's jealousy of man, the sinister impulses shadowing an ethereal beauty. Darkness mingling with light, love tinted with malice. The greater ambitions halted, stymied, by the roadblocks of a lesser being than how he accounted himself and his linage at the chosen and favored son of God himself.

He was a ghost, a phantom, that George Crawley had never met or seen. And yet, of all the people in this world, this poltergeist in the beautiful man's face haunted the very destiny of both young men, forever pitting them against one another. Both of the combatants that day had no frame of reference, only stories, only fallout from what happened. When they looked to one another they didn't see it, didn't know what it was they were apart of. That twenty-two years of fermented hatred, distilled in the darkened cellars of misunderstandings, sisterly rivalry taken too far, and the lust for one aristocratic beauty of Downton Abbey had led to this moment. Fore, the man that George Crawley faced was, indeed, a ghost. In his face was a phantom that haunts the dreams of those who ever live in guilt for the consequences of their actions that fell on George's shoulders before he was ever born. The man he faced atop a high-flying train would shock Lady Mary Crawley catatonic, cause Anna Bates to faint, and kill Lady Grantham stone dead.

Fore the likeness between Alemdar Albert Pamuk and his father Kamal was unmatched.

George had never seen Alemdar before, but he had heard of him throughout the years. He was the illegitimate son of Kamal Pamuk and Princess Amélie of Monaco. It was the same story as most when it came to the devilish Mr. Pamuk, charming, suave, and in the middle of the night sneaking into a venerable young woman's bedroom … and never taking no as an answer. Yet, unlike Lady Mary, the princess did not acquiesce to his advances when he pushed into her room while on holiday in Tuscany. And as a result of the painful night, her screams echoing down stone streets of a sleeping village, she was pregnant. Nine months later, a beautiful boy with his mother's half-American fair coloring and her rapists face came into this world squealing as the horrified nurses watched the traumatized princess leap from the tall palace balcony to dash against the rocks and be carried away by the Mediterranean surf below.

The King wanted to toss the babe in with his whore mama, who had shamed the royal family with her' loose behavior'. But instead, the queen ransomed the boy to his grandmother, a Princess of Iran. For two million dollars of petroleum profits, one for the baby, and one as wear-guild for their daughter's virginity, Alemdar came into the care of the House of Pamuk which mourned the death of a father that had no interest in a child he knew existed. Yet, this surprise existence of an heir, of a link to her only child, did not comfort the soon widowed Princess Pamuk. The madness found in the horrifying and devoted relationship with her son was reflected in her raising of his only child. Vengeance, and its allusion from her need for absolution, tainted the beautiful boy's childhood. His worth, his legitimacy in the eyes of his grandmother was withheld till the day came in which he might deliver a mighty gift to her feet. The vengeful Persian rose reared not a man that would be better than his father, but an instrument, a weapon, for her revenge. Always and forever did she remind Alemdar that he was illegitimate, that his father had raped his mother as he had raped her, that his grandfather and Grandmother, King and Queen of Monaco, ransomed him. He was the leavings of an animal, a ruined and horrible blight upon the earth. There was no one who loved him, no one who cared … but her, his grandmother. She was all he had, the only one who cared for him, and she alone could change his very fortunes, if only he could show that he loved her back.

And there was only one way, one deed, that would prove Alemdar's love and faithfulness to the woman.

"You murdered an innocent man, just to get at me?" George asked. His famed revolver still trained on the older young man in front of him.

"I've sacrificed the lives of hundreds of men, just to see you dead!" There was a spark of enduring madness, set aflame by the very presence of the teenage adventurer before him after all these years. To this proclamation, a grim smirk played across George's face.

"And when do you plan on doing this, Pamuk?" He asked darkly. "Is now convenient …?" He raised the Ray Gun's aim to the man's head. "Cause it sure is for me." Slowly he drew back the hammer of the revolver. There was a sudden tense silence as George and Alemdar stared down one another as the train sped fiercely up the side of a hill. But slowly, the fair faced man then opened his arms wide, scabbard in hand, leaving himself completely unguarded.

"If you wish so, then do so." He offered, tilting his head up to the heavens. "But this ends today, either you or me. But it will end, Grantham." The man nodded.

"You got it …"

For a split second the finger of the adventurer touched the trigger of his weapon. He thought of the old engineer, he thought of the waste of some many lives here this day, and all to settle one feud born of an accident or fate that could not be controlled. He would gladly put an end to the river of blood born from the stupidity of an enraptured young Lady of noble birth with a charming foreign guest.

But after a long moment nothing happened.

George pushed the hammer forward on his famed weapon. It just wasn't in him. No matter what a man had done, or who he was, it was not in George Crawley to shoot him unsporting. He was a man of honor, and circumstance be damned. He would not commit murder without combat. He made a snarl as he lowered his revolver. The beautiful man seemed intrigued, watching a lifelong adversary he just met hold the Ray Gun to his side. After another showy gunfighter's twirl, George slipped the gun back into its holster. Still glaring at his enemy, the adventurer unbuckled his weapon's belt and let it fall with a thump on the roof.

_("Overture (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) – Michael Kamen)_

The flash of flickered steel in the mid-day sun glinted brightly atop the runaway train as both Alemdar and George drew their swords. There were still viscous droplets of Shiite fanatic's blood on Lord Grantham's saber when his grandson and heir drew it forth, letting the pack drop onto his other weapons. Several long paces away the elegant figure of Mr. Pamuk slipped his family's ancestral sword from its ornate sabered. The long blade was smoky and curved, scrolls of ancient Persian runes were written on the Damascus Steel. The handle was inlaid with gold and brass, with a ruby pummel that had a golden engraving of a family crest. This sword, along with the matching dagger girded to his side, were nothing like the other zealots inherited blades. These weapons were not just deadly, but works of art, valuable, heirlooms of an ancient and prominent noble blooded family. They would not be brought nor used for no purpose. In glancing them, George knew that in Alemdar's mind, this was is the end, a fight to the death.

Yet, as both young men faced one another, the adventurer saw something strange about his foe. With sword in hand, the final duel breaths away, there was peace on the man's immaculate face. All the weight and consequence of his life seemed drained away when finally facing his inherited blood enemy. Fore it was in this hour that it would finally end, this torment, this unattainable ghost that seemed completely out of his reach. Today, with the death of George Crawley, Lord of Downton, he would gain everything he had ever wanted. He would have legitimacy to his family name, the approval of his grandmother, and the accomplishment of a lifetime's worth of purpose put into everything he ever did. And if he were to fail, to fall at the end of his enemy's saber, then the madness would finally end. No more would he be the last Jesuit in this temple of hate, built around the memory of a monster. His death at the hands of his blood enemy would release him from the sworn vows of devotion to a handsome older woman's crusade of obligation. To flee her senseless war to honor the memory of a dead son who used her in every nightmarish way possible to a mother, and yet loved him with a passion as strong as her hate.

This was the first time that the two swordsmen had met … And yet in the very moment that Lady Mary Crawley, mounted for a hunt, turned and saw an angelic monster, two young men were doomed to appease the black hatred of twenty-two years of vendetta born from a girlish lust.

"Take your shot."


	7. Interlude - Eight Years Ago

_"Give a moment or two to the angry young man  
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand  
He's been stabbed in the back he's been misunderstood  
It's a comfort to know his intentions are good  
And he sits in his room with a lock on the door  
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor  
And he likes to be known as the angry young man"_

* * *

**_Eight Years Ago_**

It was an outrage of the highest order!

No one could believe that it had come to this. The law, in the infinite wisdom of a lack of foresight, really had no precedent for the matter in hand. Of course, it seemed a typical "he said, she said" which generally took place in a hearing in front of a court of law. A judge presiding and giving a ruling on the matter, then it would either go to court or it wouldn't. It was simple British Imperial Justice, envy of the world. But the matter seemed entirely confused when the accuser was in the hospital, half her body covered in mutilating third-degree burns. And the defendant in question was merely a boy, not yet a tweeny. But the case was even more complicated a matter, because, there was no guilty verdict to be had.

The defendant in question, in fact, fully admitted to pushing a woman in her late fifties into a boiling bathtub of bleach. His argument wasn't even self-defense, fore he had broken into private property. To this, many would say that the argument was a moot point. The boy in question had broken into not just a house, but a castle of great importance and governance, assaulted its staff, and had brutally disfigured a member of the noble family that lived there. To anyone in the world, that seemed like no better reason to lock the boy up.

But there were questions that called much into uncertainty of the simplicity of the case. The first question: why would the boy break into Brancaster Castle? If you asked the Lord and Lady, they'd say it impossible. The boy in question was always welcome there, he could come and go at his leisure. Lady Hexham even going as far as wishing he'd come and live with her. If he was accused of breaking and entering, the charges would be falsely filed. The second question: Why was there boiling bleach in the guest bathroom in the first place? To that, no one could say. The staff of Brancaster seemed at a loss of words when questioned. The Royal Detectives and the Chief Inspector had their doubts that Lord and Lady Hexham's staff had no idea about the boiling vat of chemicals. Surely, they knew why they did it and to who's orders it was commissioned. But still they toed the unified line of this person gave an order and that person called it in, till it seemed even the scullery maid had a hand in giving messages. And the final question: What's the motive? Anyone would tell you that the accuser and the defendant did not like one another. They would dare to say that the boy did not like most titled women over the age of forty-eight. And the accuser had always thought the boy a very, very, bad influence on her son and daughters-in-law's angelic ward.

Yet, the investigators would be willing to give the benefit of doubt if the whole story wasn't so incredibly far-fetched, so impossible and horrifying. It was the boy's side of the story that seemed so outlandish to even the most hardened sensibilities of veteran law enforcement. The evidence was there, the timetable was there, but the story of what happened was something they couldn't get their head around. With speed, smuggling on the last train out of Downton Station, a young boy snuck past armed guards and onto the vast estate under cover of stormy night. There, he found that Mrs. Mirada Pelham, mother of the Marquess of Hexham, was attempting to dunk her son and his wife's ward into a bathtub of boiling bleach to cleanse the golden-haired angel of her sinful taint and restore her purity. The very thought of such a thing chilled the Royal Investigators to their very bones. To think it was possible that a woman such as Mirada Pelham, a vocal crusader for morality, was capable of such barbarous acts. But when questioned why she would do such a thing; they were flat out, top down, horrified.

It was the boy's account for the reason that Marigold Drewe was nearly boiled alive in a chemical bath was because she saw something she shouldn't have. That an innocent and perfect little girl, frightened of the violent storm, had walked into her best friend's guest room, the niece of Lady Hexham, seeking comfort and shelter in her 'sister's' arms. But when she entered Ms. Sybbie Branson's room, in a flash of lightning, she saw Mirada Pelham … doing something a grown woman shouldn't to a young girl. Marigold, frightened and horrified to see her best friend, her sister in all but blood, splayed on the bed with her own "Granny M" doing … what she was doing as her victim mewled and looked away from it in shame. In that moment the little girl fled, she ran fast, outpacing the castle butler who was supposed to have been keeping watch for his "Mistress".

Little Marigold ran all the way to the phone. And it was there that she called her other best friend. He was a boy she loved so much that she could not think of anyone else to call upon to save her and their sister. And when Mirada Pelham was too late to stop her step-granddaughter's private emergency signal, George Crawley, armed with exotic weapons … came.

"_Did some fine work here, he did."_ As the constables said.

The boy had cleaved through the staff of the castle like cutting a cake. Three footmen had serious injuries, including traumatic concussions from a guerilla style ambush in Brancaster's Painted Hall and other such places as they walked patrol down the haunted corridors. The Sergeant-At-Arms of the Hexham Estate broke his leg in two places when he fell over the railing after being struck between the eyes by a smooth volcanic rock flung from the shadows by a Samoan native sling. But the Butler of Brancaster had it the worst of all the staff. Mirada Pelham's lookout and co-conspirator had his kneecap shattered with an iron fire poker and his laborious gut had been beaten to near catastrophic bruising. It was clear that the stories had been true about George Crawley. He was, indeed, highly trained in matters of swordsmanship, stealth combat, and a myriad of other disciplines covered under the arts of altogether "ungentlemanly warfare". There was an air of "The Thugee" about his tactics and training that made some of the older men nervous.

It was then, in the eleventh hour, just as Mirada carried a terrified and begging Marigold into the bathroom like a holy sacrifice, the boy leapt upon the woman. The two grappled in furious battle then, like a hunting hound against a mad dog. They used nails, fists, and teeth as they fought savagely over the sobbing little girl in question that hid in Sybbie's protective arms. Poor Marigold cradled bloody fingers whose nails were torn off from gripping doorways and wall corners as Mirada ripped her down the hall. She lay across Sybbie's half-naked body, unable to sit, after Mrs. Pelham had lifted the girl's nightgown and gave her cruel spankings on her bare bottom till Marigold let go of the obstructions she clung too in protest. But eventually, all wounds were avenged when George finally brought an end to their fight over Marigold and Sybbie. Lowering his shoulder, the trained fighter rammed the old woman's thighs, forcing her onto bleach slickened tile. There she slipped into her own boiling chemical bath.

Taking both girls away, it was the next morning that they found the three of them together at Crawley House. When their parents and guardians came upon them, the two girls were snuggled together in George Crawley's bed. They both looked like beaten and traumatized kittens as the two girls lay atop one another, wide awake, haunted and traumatized in their quiet cuddling. Meanwhile, their rescuer sat in his father's leather chair pulled up by his bed. Bloody scratches on his cheek, George quietly sharpened a Rajput sword while sitting in protective vigil by the girls he loved most. It was there that their family saw that Ms. Marigold Drewe and Ms. Sybil Branson, two of the most beautiful and perfect girls in the whole Imperium, had been utterly broken.

But the question remained how could someone do something like that to young girls? One girl molested for months, right under her father and 'mama's' noses. A girl bribed with jewels and finery if she didn't tell anyone. A girl who suffered in silence, afraid that if she refused the old woman's lecherous advances that she would go after Marigold in her stead. When they met young Ms. Sybil, she was as pretty as the finest dolly, but flinched at all mature female presence that wasn't Lady Grantham, her granny. The other girl was healing physically but not mentally. When the Royal Investigators came to talk to Lady Edith, they found her little ballerina unable to sit, for her fanny had been beaten raw. Her fingers were bandaged, covered in deep gashes. She was also terrified of bathtubs. The girl could only bath if Lady Edith got in with her, showing her that it was just warm water and soap. Then, Marigold would sob uncontrollably, clinging to her guardian, as her _Aunt_ Edith bathed her, trying not to cry herself. It was then that one had to question how it was possible that someone so vile could do something like that to such lovely young roses not yet bloomed. The answer was simple, given from way up high in the chain of command … and it was that those investigators weren't paid to ask those questions. They were paid to make this go away, by royal decree.

After all, George Crawley was a rebel and a traitor … even if he told no word of a lie.

The truth was spoken plainly by the young heir to the House of Grantham. But the truth was also that the Aristocracy could not afford another scandal of such magnitude. Forever scarred by the death of his look-alike cousin and his family in Russia, the King and the Monarchists saw _red_ in their periphery wherever they went. And with the worker strikes stoking fires in Yorkshire, they would not give the Northmen another reason to rise up. The idea of such perversions, such grotesquery from a leading voice of morality in the upper classes was unthinkable. But the Palace would've left it up to the Houses of Grantham and Hexham of how to handle such a matter, if their ear was not gained by others. Fore it was, in the chambers of the House of Lords, that there were some men who saw an opportunity in the making.

Ms. Sybbie Branson was a new and modern commodity to the British Imperium. An Heiress. The lovely young girl stood to gain an ever-expanding and booming motor fortune, which would be attractive enough in the next ten years. But what if they could sweeten the pot? What if, in addition to her immense beauty and her parent's lucrative motor trade, she also could come with the largest agricultural producer in the entirety of the great island kingdom? In the recent years, it had come to the attention of many in high places in government and society that the greater Grantham Estate produced numbers and profits only seen by Plantation owners in the Colonies.

George Crawley was the last heir to the House of Grantham. There was no other. If these men could- somehow- take the young Lord of Downton out, then the ancient House of Grantham, with all its titles, would become extinct. The Grantham Estate, then, would revert to its majority holder, Lady Mary Talbot. Thus, with her only son, George, out of the way, and a dependable 'expiration date' to Lord and Lady Grantham, the only viable successor of Lady Mary was her niece and adopted daughter Ms. Sybil Afton Branson. Indeed, there was an opportunity here to relieve the House of Grantham of their great burden of existence, and acquire a fortune beyond any Peer's wildest dreams, all in a beautiful and pearly silk marriage purse.

After all, no one of good character and sense in High Society even liked George Crawley. He may have been a boy of exceeding youth, but already he was an odd sort. The boy's curls were not long, but thick, shaggy, and mop like, which draped over his ears and covered the back of his neck. His dress was common and rugged, like that of a farmer or fisherman's son. The cloth of his clothing was of some strange making, with even stranger hieroglyphic adornments on his jacket sleeve. His speech was not of England, akin to something American like. On top of such a thing, the strange boy spoke half a dozen languages, including being known to utter Gaelic, in the open English street, like some uncouth barbarian. This, most deemed, had come from him being uncommonly and incredibly studious, steeped in strange knowledges and owner of even stranger texts of ancient and even pre-history that seemed unbelievable.

Those young children of the village who befriended him, often fell under such a spell, learning much of the world and speaking of strange tales and places of forgotten lore of the likes that many Lords and Ladies would say were not meant for their classes. Yet, the common people loved him so, even if they did find him a bit of an acquired taste with his adventuring and not wholly English ways. But to the British upper classes, those with a little more influence in places of governance, found him absolutely cracked. The House of Lords, in the least, knew of the boy's master, the old Sikh science pirate. And though his service to the Empire in the past had gained him peace, it was not bought nor borne with a great love between the Imperium and mysterious captain of the ocean fathoms. And of the old villain's hatred for the Royal House of Winsor, he taught heartily to his young apprentice. There were whispers from Princess Mary's own household of names such as "Hanoverian Tyrants" being slandered upon the Royal family by the young Viscount in open Republican sedition against the King Emperor and the Prince of Wales themselves.

It was these rumors that caused Edward, Prince of Wales, to whisper in his father's ear of the opportunity to smother in the crib any future dissidence from a boy that would grow into a powerful and charismatic leader of men. To their credit, the Royal House showed a much greater restraint than what Edward proposed. Princess Mary arguing fiercely against this plot of her elder brother and a few other Lords who lusted after a future heiress of surpassing beauty which would acquire much their heart hotly desired. But the King Emperor, none the less, saw the wisdom of cutting off a Republican head before it could grow into a foe. Thus, he gifted his decree to a son who bore a great hatred for a young adventurer who had humiliated him one too many times in Africa.

It was then that Lady Maude Bagshaw had been sent from the Palace to ensure that her family's heir understood the Royal terms, as did the Imperial Courts own Lord Leftenant.

It was a no-win scenario that had been handed down so callously. In fact, when Richard Ellis, newly promoted as dresser of the King, had asked his highness about it 'casually' before dinner, the old monarch couldn't quite remember the name of the chap the decree was addressed too. It was some enemy of the Prince, or other, he said before giving a gruff and distracted chuckle. _"Playing the odds, Ellis, playing the odds, you know."_ It was clear, in that moment, that the entire episode, including his own daughter begging him not to placate to her brother's vanity, was forgotten so easily. Meanwhile, the queen simply said that their own family's peace was more important than some squabble in their Court between a minor Peer with an ancient title and the mother of a Marquess. She assured Maude that "Eddy" would lose interest in his current "White Wale", this Lord of Downton who made him a fool in Africa. And that Princess Mary was always fickle with her causes. But when Lady Bagshaw pointed out that Princess Mary's objections came that her brother's "White Wale", The Viscount of Downton Abbey, was a young boy, The Queen paused from her letter writing. "How terribly droll …" it was all she said before going back to what she was doing, forgetting the entire conversation already.

Now the choice was before young George Crawley. The King's terms were that the youth keep the story of the molestation of Sybbie and the attempted murder of Marigold to himself. That never again would he speak in public of such things. In the legal document, drafted by a Prince's bruised ego, and every word written by ambitious schemers, they laid out the contrary evidence to his claims that was not founded by any detective or medical expert. Furthermore, as Royal Decree, if the boy did not sign the contract or breached it in anyway, he would have all his titles and lands stripped from his person and condemned to an Asylum as a creditable threat to Sybbie and Marigold's well-being. The threat alone was made wholly more dangerous by stating that it would not be just any Asylum, but "**_Carfax Asylum"_**, the Imperial Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane. There, in those desiccated and diseased walls, was housed the madness of three hundred years of the worst Criminals from every corner of the Imperium. And by the King Emperor's signature, it was made clear that the House of Winsor had no reservations of throwing the young boy in the deepest and darkest cell in one of the worst 'madhouses' in the entire world, perhaps on par with "The Mission" in Saltillo Mexico.

The very thought of the boy in that rank darkness of evil terrified Ladies Hexham and Grantham. Lady Bagshaw had agonized over it for a week. While Lucy had such terrible nightmares, unable to bring herself to tell Tom Branson, her lover, the fate that could await his beloved nephew with the face of his lost wife. It seemed that the only person yet to be daunted by the prospect of being locked away in one of the worst criminal asylums in the world was George himself. The boy was forthright, steadfast, and valiant to the last. He did not cow to threats from a "fat and empty-headed doddering old man" nor his 'foppish princeling' who cries during sex. How he knew that about Prince Edward no one was sure. But the Princess, in the least, as usual, found the young adventurer's candor and unassailable courage enamoringly admirable.

"Sign the document!"

"I already told-"

"You do not dictate to me what you have and haven't told me, boy!"

"I won't sign it."

"You will put an end to this, now!"

"Or what?!"

"Do not test me …"

"Robert, enough!"

The Library of Downton Abbey was hot, both in temperature of room and people inside. No one knew how long they had been going at it. What was supposed to be a simple family meeting to discuss options had turned into a full-on shouting match between a Lord and his heir. Meanwhile everyone else watched in disbelief and conflicted emotions. No one, not a single person in that library on that day, knew what to do. It had come out of nowhere, the Royal Decree. Their first reaction was outrage, anger, betrayal. Then, there came helplessness, a fight against the inescapable gravity of the mighty mass of such a great figure in the pantheon of, certainly, their universe. It never occurred to them that when given a direct order from the King of England that it was possible to say no.

But George Crawley did just that.

Lady Grantham placed a comforting hand on the Lord's shoulder. Though, it seemed more a physical restraining to her husband's temper. She paced forward toward a young boy with his arms crossed defiantly. The deep scratches on his cheek were already healing- they wouldn't scar, that was for other wounds given that night. Cerulean eyes, matching that of his granny, stalked his grandfather who frustratedly paced to the mantel of the fireplace. There he rested a folded elbow, while his other hand scrubbed his face with a low growl under breath. He found it hard to fathom being placed in this situation again. And by his king of all people.

"Darling, please …"

"You're not going to talk …"

"Think for a minute!" Cora snarled rancorously over her grandson and ward when he tried to interrupt her. "They're not asking you to deny that it happened! They only want your word that you won't speak of it to anyone." She explained.

"And what about that hag, huh?! What will be done with her?!" He shrugged his granny's hand off his shoulder, striding toward Robert who was disengaged from the headlong rush into a grandson sized fortress wall.

"I promise, your Uncle Bertie and I will deal with Mirada." Edith reached for the boy's hand. But she looked hurt when he rebuffed his beloved aunt's affection.

"Don't lie to me!" The boy shouted at Edith who was suddenly taken back by the ferocity. "You know that it takes eyewitnesses, reliable sources, to have someone committed to the Nuthouse!" He pointed at Edith. "The staff of Brancaster were hired by her, she holds their contracts, they're loyal to her! If I sign that document, then there will be no witnesses! It's her word against Marigold and Sybbie! And who are they gonna believe, huh? A couple of little girls, born to working-class fathers? Or the moral crusader of Northumberland?!" He shouted at one of the few true paternal figures in his life. Edith shrank deeper into the red sofa, eyes watery again.

George spoke the truth. Much of Bertie and her household had been set up by her mother-in-law while Bertie and she settled their differences about Marigold before their wedding. Yet, furthermore, when they both stumbled out of the gate as Marquess and Marchioness, Edith had been grateful to Mirada for helping her in so many aspects of issues that required Bertie and her attention that neither were quite adept at handling. Bertie had been a soldier most of his life and Edith a writer. But now she saw that her mother-in-law was not trying to help them, but more cultivating political and domestic relationships for her own ends as a power broker. Edith and Bertie might have been Lord and Lady of the ancient House of Hexham, but everyone knew who the real mistress of Brancaster Castle was. It was why she thought, so brazenly, that she could do what she did to Sybbie for so long without fear of reprisal. It made Edith sick to her stomach to think of her own house as the lair of a gluttonous black spider that lured Sybbie into her webs so she could be feasted upon.

"If I sign that document, nothing, NOTHING, will be done!" He roared at all his family around him pounding a fist on the table that startled everyone.

"Something will be done …" Lady Maude Bagshaw spoke gravely as she stood with her daughter, Lucy Smith, at the refreshment table by the glass doors to the estate gardens. "It will just be you that will face the consequences." The woman was quiet but direct, looking almost mournful. As a lady-in-waiting for the Queen, Lady Bagshaw had been privy to the beastly row between the Prince of Wales and Princess Mary in the King's chambers over this. But in the end, it was fear, a great deal of fear of the future that endangered them all.

And it was not the eleventh hour, but the time was slowly closing in. The boy now had two days to sign the document. Yet, he still would not yield the point nor burry what had happened that night. And it was his unyielding devotion to truth and justice that made it so incredibly hard for Lord Grantham, and especially Tom Branson, to argue any contrary point with him. And, in the least, Tom himself knew George to be in the right.

There was a larger, older, part of the boy's uncle who cheered for the young rebel, perhaps the loudest of them all. At most this 'decree' could only deepen his hatred for the Royal Family further. In any other circumstance it might have driven him to put a bomb under Prince Edward's car when he drunkenly stumbled out of a nightclub some morning. But the more reformed and experienced Irishman knew that none of it would help his little girl. He wanted justice for her, but revenge would gain nothing.

The awful truth was that he didn't even know what to say to Sybbie. He was truly beaten, thoroughly defeated, by something he never thought possible. There was not a time, at any moment of his life, when he entrusted his daughter's care to Mirada Pelham - who would turn fifty-six years old next month - that she was in danger. Indeed, that very blind side was almost impossible to explain to a girl who sought a simple 'why' from her daddy. And as terrible as it was, if it had been a man, there might have been many explanations of the degenerate sickness of lusting after young girls. But when it was an old, matronly, woman who kissed and fondled a young girl … how does one explain that to their daughter? How could he convince his girl that she could trust anyone ever again?

"My dear …" Lady Violet suddenly spoke kindly and with understanding. They all turned to the old dowager as she hobbled out of her chair. "I understand what you want." she sighed tiredly. "And if I were in your shoes, I would want justice as well. What Mrs. Pelham tried to do to Marigold was unforgivable." She paced to a confused boy. "But, my dear, it's time to come clean." She was neutral, standing authoritatively paternal in front of their suddenly confused but stalwart heir.

"About what?" The boy frowned.

"I know you love her, that the two of you are very close. I also know that you want to protect her at any cost." Violet waved her hand as if clearing mist over her point.

There was one small factor that seemed to undercut this heart to heart talk that the Dowager Countess was trying to have with The House of Grantham's heir. That was the fact that Violet Crawley had forgotten just how much she and her great-grandson unequivocally and desperately … hated one another. This factor was played up by the confused glance around the room by George, not believing that Violet, of all people, was trying to level with a boy that she referred to as "Cora's Little Animal" when speaking in private. He turned to Edith with a look of confusion and shock. For a moment everyone thought that Violet might have lost her mind or, in the least, was having a stroke.

"No, no …" She held her hand up at the boy who looked her up and down with the usual distain. "I've not forgotten how you feel about me, and I have, surely, not forgotten how I feel about you." She addressed.

"Careful, Mama …" Cora's voice took a low register of contemptuous warning.

Lady Grantham being George's guardian and sole parent had not gone with whimsical complacency. For quite some years now, it seemed to everyone that Lady Grantham had forgotten that she was not the boy's actual mother. Yet, for all the trouble that came with George that plagued her some days, the Countess of Grantham would never hear an insult or slander be put to her boy, her only boy. Of this, Lady Violet had learned the hard way. Cora might not have had the wit of the Crawley women, but she more than made up for it with her iron grip over her family. In the last few years, Lady Grantham had hardened considerably as a person and as a maternal figure. One would have need of a stricter attitude to parent the wild George Crawley. Cora ruled her territory like a tyrant, and she did not need to rebuke or remind her mother-in-law who ruled here.

"Peace …" The Dowager motioned that there was no ill will in her offering. "I've only this to say. That while you and I do not see eye to eye on … anything in the universe. I do not want the heir of this family locked away. I might not like it, but you are our future. And thus, I must beseech that you tell the truth." She stamped her cane.

The boy frowned. "What the hell are you talking about, old woman?!" He snarled with a shake of his head in confusion.

"George!" Cora snapped in rebuke before Robert could blow up, her hand frozen in restraint on his chest.

"I'm told constantly by everyone that you are the smartest person in the room. So why you can't see what is going on around you, seems to contradict everything Edith has said! Think, boy! Prince Edward does not just want you to refuse to sign the decree, he is counting on your defiance! Your pride and devotion to Marigold will doom this family!" There was something prophetic in her words that struck a chord in the very ether of the Library. "Out with it!" She snapped.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" George shouted back.

"Mama, what are you getting at?" Robert was also confused.

"Isn't it obvious …?" Violet looked around at her family. But no one seemed to see the situation the way the Dowager did.

"She lied."

Everyone turned to Lady Mary Crawley who was sitting by Tom. The woman had not said a word till that point. When the fighting started, she only stared. Yet, the entire time her gaze was trained at no one else but her son. It was not with hatred, or anger, nor with love either. The beautiful and pale great lady simply watched her child as if studying his silhouette in a mist. It seemed that she was trying to recognize him, see him in true detail. No one quite knew what was in her mind, but they knew, in the least, that her son had consumed every facet of it. Edith would almost say, watching her sister from afar, that it was the way that Mary used to look at Matthew when he first arrived. A hated rival to which the very notion bore a connection of great affinity and, dare one say, deep admiration. Like it had been with his father, determined to not let Downton change him, there was a quiet obsession in Mary's heart for one more passionate rebel to which she despised for how much she loved him.

"Marigold lied … that is what Granny is saying." Mary stood up casually. "She thinks that Marigold made up what happened to Sybbie, knowing that George would overreact violently … as usual." There was a cold cut in her finish aimed at the young boy. "She's convinced that George is protecting Marigold's reputation." The woman poured herself a cup of tea, not even looking back at her family.

Indeed, it was the greatest enemy that faced George Crawley and Marigold Drewe. Even in the room of their family there was a contingent, non-vocal, but reeling at the story they told. There were some that had convinced themselves that there was a mistake. That perhaps Marigold didn't know what she was looking at or didn't understand what was going on. There was a thought that perhaps the girl had done something incredibly naughty and was lying all together.

"Oh, Granny!" Edith was outraged with wide golden eyes and a look of shock on her glamorous face.

"No, no …" Violet waved a lace gloved finger at her Marchioness granddaughter. "Now, my dear, I must admit, that Marigold is by far, my favorite of my grand …" She paused immediately, glancing at a suspicious George who didn't know what she would say next. Of all in the room, the boy was the only one not privy to the great secret that laid in the weeds, stalking two children with a great doom of cruel irony set against their love. "She is my favorite of my grandchildren's wards." She recovered flawlessly, causing Cora to give a slight sigh of relief. "But while even I admit that it seems almost far-fetched to say this, Marigold is not perfect." She explained to a flabbergasted, open mouthed, Edith.

"Marigold would never do such a thing as lie about something so large!" Edith protested.

To this Violet only tilted her head. "My dear, Marigold is a little girl, all little girls lie … or have you forgotten Jack Daughtry?" She reminded.

To this name, even Mary turned with a raised eyebrow at a name that nobody had heard in many long decades. Suddenly, there was a flush of deep embarrassment on Lady Hexham who sank into the red sofa in shame.

"That … that was different." Edith shook her head.

"The statue of Cupid in the garden lost its head, and you blamed it on the stable boy, if I remember correctly. His father beat him savagely till he was lame for losing his place, and it was Patrick, If I recall, who admitted that it had been you, all along, who had broken the statue." The Dowager leaned heavily on her cane, observing Edith with a knowing and condescending look.

"It was Patrick who broke the statue." The golden-haired woman almost whispered.

"Yes, I know …" Violet nodded. "Patrick was a decent boy, but he had streaks of his grandmother … a nasty piece of work. Your mother harshly punished you for what you did to that boy. When in reality you did nothing, but still you lied to protect Patrick." She replied.

Edith looked up. "Mama condemned me to Porridge for breakfast, Eggs for Lunch, and soup for dinner for a month, only letting me out of my room for Mary and my studies with the governess. Patrick would have been locked in his room till he was sent away to boarding school! I was all he had!" The woman defended in shame, trying once more to come to terms with the darkest chapter of her childhood.

Yet, she was grateful for parents who loved her completely, despite their low standards for her. She had witnessed Patrick's mistreatment, cried over him as he was forced into dark basement closets when he misbehaved or was deemed to be disobedient. Their Uncle James had quite the black temper that both Papa and Sybil had shown shadows of. But while both Papa and Sybil barked fiercely, they never bit, for it was not in their nature to ever lay hands on the ones they loved. Yet, Patrick Crawley's father was all bite and dark cruelty hidden under congenial gentlemanly manner. In those days of her youth, Edith had been an impossible position. Patrick Crawley was meek and weak, kind, but frightened of much. And everyone from Granny to Mary enjoyed dominating him from the time they were children. And yet, Edith couldn't lose her only friend in the world for much of her life. She took responsibility when he lied on her, knowing that her punishment would be severe but humane compared to what Uncle James would've done to Patrick who nearly gave himself a seizure in panic when he broke the statue.

"That is precisely my point, Edith!" Violet argued. "Who knows what Marigold did? Perhaps it was a miniscule piece of minor villainy. Most likely, knowing the continence of the girl, it was a small trifle that she felt incredibly guilty about. So, she lied! Perhaps, Mrs. Pelham came on too strong, over reacted and scared Marigold. But either way, you, of all people, should know that little girls, even the perfect ones, have many reasons to not tell the whole truth in these matters." She was grave in her manner, looking nowhere but right into the Marchioness's golden eyes.

"The hell are you clucking at crone?!" George suddenly broke in with nothing but insult and contempt.

"I'm clucking at reason, boy!" She whirled on her great-grandson. "Protecting that little girl's reputation is not more important than the future of this family!" She raised her voice. George strode up to Lady Violet swiftly, causing Lucy to flinch backward. All the air in the room was stolen as Matriarch and Heir, the past and the future of the Crawley family, stared down one another in deep contrasts. Violet stamped her cane again in an anger that she had not felt in decades of her life.

"Women do not do things like that to young girls." Violet scoffed, lowering herself to match eyes with her great-grandson.

"Marigold-doesn't-lie!" George said slowly, lowly, and perilously.

"Says you." They turned to find Mary sipping her tea, looking positively frigid as an Artic night.

"Says Sybbie!" George was rancorous in his dismissal of his mother while turning back to Violet.

"That's not what she told me." Mary gave a smug and slight turn of her head. Slowly, George turned back to his mama, who was vibrating with bottled anxiety. But still she drank neat and dainty, looking her son over with red tinted amber eyes from her turned up cup.

The boy glared darkly at her. "What do you mean?!" He demanded.

"Exactly what I said." Mary's cup clinked on the porcelain saucer. "As far as I know, Sybbie doesn't recall anything of the sort happening to her." She shrugged, moving across the library.

"That's a filthy lie!" George said in sudden outrage, his heart dropping from his chest into an abyss without end.

Mary sat gracefully on the sofa, next to Edith, straightening her silk skirt. "Oh, so now it's a lie." His mother gave a condescending voice. "I thought you said …" She began.

"Marigold doesn't lie!" George reiterated. "All Sybbie does is lie!" He accused his twin sister in everything but birth and name. "She lies all the time to get what she wants!" He continued. "And she's lying now!" He roared.

"Well, then …" Mary played with her pearls. "Perhaps she lied to Marigold." She shrugged.

"But she didn't …" George said defensively. "I was there that night!" He had such a vivid look in his own eyes that it was almost as if he was standing in that dark corridor of the castle once more. He could almost smell the bleach fumes overpowering him. There was a flickered second of hesitation that manifested in the lightening of sympathy in Mary's lovely face.

"But she's told me the same thing …"

It was timid and gentle, but still Lucy Smith spoke out from her spot behind her new family. Never had she ever been privy to such a row before. It seemed another world, another place, from where she grew up and went to school. For so long it had been just her mother and her. Now, in just one year, she was an heiress, with a boyfriend, an extended family, and a future stepdaughter that most people didn't get the point of … that went beyond her considerable looks and her money.

But Lucy's kindness, her empathy, was like a flame to a young girl's moth. The two bonded over hair and make-up, Sybbie always wanting to look as glamorous and regal as Lady Mary, her 'mama'. It had been Lucy's way into the girl's life, and like most young girls, Sybbie was talkative and loved to gossip while Lucy and she 'experimented' with different stylish looks. Indeed, as two heiresses of new fortunes, they felt a kinship that was unrivaled. And, in truth, Lucy knew that Sybbie looked up to her. The girl didn't think she was born with the natural feminine ease of her mama, and so always she looked to her 'Aunt' Lucy to see how an heiress carried herself at all times. Thus, at the vanity, or in the dressing rooms on shopping trips, Sybbie spoke her mind and many truths that she was otherwise too afraid to speak to her daddy or her 'perfect' mama.

It was at the vanity that Sybbie had spoken of that awful night. But what Lucy remembered most was the blank look in the lovely creature's eyes. Her polished and heavenly voice was bereft of emotion as she spoke. It was as if she was in a trance state. In fact, it worried her aunt greatly- the sudden dissociation in which she was enraptured in. Then, she turned and repeated the words over and over again with sputtering sobs.

_"It didn't happen, it didn't happen … no, no, it was all in Marigold's head, she doesn't know … she doesn't know … Women don't do that … they don't, they don't … no, no, Aunt Lucy they don't! She didn't kiss me, she didn't put her tongue in my … because, it didn't happen. Grannies don't do that. No, they don't, right? Right?! No, Marigold is lying, that's not what happened, it's not Aunt Lucy! I didn't let her do that to me! It didn't happen to me! Marigold is Lying! She's Lying! She's Lying! She's a Laiherherer!" _

"See there you go, corroboration." Mary tilted her head, waiting for George's next move.

"You weren't there!" George suddenly shouted at Lucy who backed away. "None of you were!" He pointed out to his family. "You didn't see the look in her eye! You didn't see the silk scarfs on her wrists where she was tied to the bed! Or the smell of rose scented body oil on her thighs! It happened! I don't care what Sybbie says, she knows it happened!" He ranted.

"No!" Robert spoke up again. "What happened is that a violent and uncivilized child assaulted his aunt's estate, and nearly murdered six people! I'll admit, I found it amusing when Isobel made a pact with the old Sikh villain to take you on as his Apprentice, but I see now that I was a fool! This is not Africa or Hong Kong, **_Sybil_**, and it, certainly, is not wherever else it is you go on your "Expeditions"! In the real world, people do not attack others based on the hear-say of young girls, nor beat them into comas!" Lord Grantham engaged.

But everyone else watched him, ears perked up in sudden wonder. In his desperation he had called the boy something, a name, that he did not even realize he had done. Fore, in this moment, he did not see his Grandson, but a daughter who only ever fought and defied him in this same way. It was fear of loss, a memory that came from the same place of love where both youngest daughter and only grandson resided together in his heart. Both shared the same face and personality ticks when angered, as if they were two people in one. And for a moment …

Robert Crawley forgot which of the two he was even fighting with.

"In the real world, people are convicted of their crimes! They're brought to Justice!" George did not back down, unfazed by being called the name of a woman he never met, and yet could never escape in the eyes of those who loved her most.

There was a sudden clatter of china. "How much more justice do you think is required?! She is in a body cast, covered in paste and ice from head to toe! You won, for God sake, what else do you want?!" Mary was now clearly frustrated. She had thought, hoped, that dancing circles around the boy would make him concede. But, instead, he doubled down. Indeed, there was never a more dangerous figure than George Crawley with his back against the wall. He would never back down, dragging the entire world into war, before ever surrendering. It was as if he had no sense at all of what awaited him if he did not yield.

"She has to pay for what she's done!"

For a second they saw the madness of a Science Pirate's influence. Then, they realized that he would never be satisfied with the mutilation of Mirada Pelham. She had raped and attempted to murder the girls he loved. Only when she was expunged from the world, the universe itself, would he find peace. In him, for all to see, was the first wisps of the great shadow inside that would frighten many evil men and older and fouler things of the world in the years to come. Yet, in it carried the seeds of many terrible mistakes and tragedies that would befall him when possessed by that same darkness that sparked in his cerulean eyes.

"And what about Marigold and Sybbie, should they pay too?" Mary stood at full height, frightened by the hate in a small boy's voice. And somewhere inside her, she knew that she was the blame for it ever being there in the first place. "What happens when you get what you want?!" The pale beauty stepped toward George. "What happens when you get your day in the courts? What happens when they call Sybbie up there to the stand?! Have you ever been to a criminal court, George? I have, it's terrible!" She gritted her teeth.

"They'll tear Sybbie apart, knock her stuffing all over the courtroom floor, ask her all sorts of questions!" She ranted bitterly. "Did she touch you there? Did she kiss you with her tongue? Where else did she put her tongue?! Have you ever had unnatural thoughts about other girls?! They'll destroy her on that stand!" Mary lost all her composure. She was, in that horrible stretch of time, an exposed wire sparking. "Not to mention her reputation, her future, will be in tatters! All anyone will remember, forever, is the girl who was molested, raped, by an old woman! Or worse, pray, that she lied about it! Is that what you want for a girl you claim to love?! Is that what you want for Sybbie?!" She shouted at her son, squaring up to him between the two red sofas of the Downton Library.

It was then, that Lord and Lady Grantham, and the dowager, looked away. They did not hear a concerned mother then. What they heard in her stead was a frightened and confused teenage girl crying in her mother's arms as they lay in Cora Levinson's childhood bedroom in New York. It was the fears of a young girl begging her mother, her grandmamma, not to turn her grandpapa into the authorities. She couldn't bear the questions that the inspectors would ask about her time alone with the old Earl of Grantham. She was terrified of being blamed, of her dreams of being the grandest Lady in all of England being squashed, because, her grandfather liked to pleasure himself onto her face or belly while watching her in the bath or coming to her bedroom in the night. She didn't want anyone to know, no one could know what that man did to her.

What would she tell them? What could she tell them? She didn't tell him no, not ever, even during the times he did ask if it was alright. They would think her an awful tease, that she was trying to exploit an old Lord who wrote her love letters every day to advantage. He had been a sick and twisted old man who died believing that his eldest granddaughter was the true love of his life. It was then that her parents and grandmother knew that these similar sins, now visited upon Sybbie on Mary's own watch, only brought the specter of those awful days that she never could face. Instead, she was possessed by the old fear for another beautiful young girl who suffered cruelly by the hands of someone who was supposed to protect her.

But it was then that George got a cold realization, for her reaction was telling in another matter.

"Wait a minute …" The boy looked enraged. "This is down to you, isn't it?!" He pointed an accusatory finger. "You're the one who told Sybbie to say all those things! You're the one who convinced her to lie, didn't you?!" When Mary didn't speak, the boy gave her a sudden shove. This sent Tom to his feet, hand outstretched in a cautionary body language. "You're telling Sybbie to lie! You're the one brainwashing her into thinking that it didn't happen!" The boy was rancorous and snarling. He looked around to see if anyone else was hearing what he was saying, if they also realized it. But then he paused …

In one glance, looking into every face, he realized that they all knew, that they all had a hand in the lie.

"You all …" The boy stumbled backward as if he had been shoved himself. "You all convinced her to lie. You all, knew what happened to her and still …" He couldn't comprehend what was going on.

"Oh, George!" Lady Grantham scoffed, looking away in sudden shame. "It's not that simple!" She said glassy eyed.

"It is that simple!" He roared back at his only guardian. "She raped Sybbie for months, she tried to murder Marigold! And you told them to forget about it?!" He was reeling in confusion and betrayal.

"The King Emperor has spoken!" Violet said with conviction. "What do you suggest we do, boy?" She asked. "Throw away five-hundred years of history and heritage, for a fight we cannot and will never win at any cost?!" The old woman asked. "What it is to be young and naïve." She cut with disappointment.

"We're assuring that the girls have a future beyond this …" Robert added. "We are working so that this 'incident' does not define the girls for the rest of their lives! Our only concern is that the girls will have lives, happy and normal ones when all of this is over." He fought back.

"And your principles?!" George asked in accusation.

"They remain till one's family is threatened … then, they become flexible in favor of protecting the ones you love. I learned that the hard way once, when your Aunt Sybil was pregnant, and I put my principles and causes ahead of her and the baby's welfare. It is not a lesson I'd be likely to forget." It was Tom Branson who spoke gravely.

"It's not right …" the youth said quietly at first. He looked to his Uncle Tom, the least reasonable man he knew in matters of honor. But even the Irishman was unmoved. "You all conspired to accuse Marigold of lying … to betray her!" He shouted.

"We aren't betraying anyone. Marigold knows what she saw and what happened when it happened. Unlike you, she was satisfied with the outcome that you perpetrated! And unlike you, her concern was for Sybbie's well-being, not her own revenge." Robert was rancorous.

"That's because you told her what to say, you told her to lie!" George yelled back, feeling suddenly threatened.

"Perhaps, but her lie will save this family, her and Sybbie's future, and most importantly, your life!" Lady Bagshaw argued.

"I'd rather spend two days in freedom and leave the circles of the world forever with Marigold and my honor intact, than trade it for a thousand years of your worthless compromise for hollow prosperity!" The boy proclaimed defiantly to his family. In that moment it seemed to take everything that Tom Branson had to not stand by his nephew's side in solidarity, for somewhere in his voice they heard the very ghost of Matthew Crawley in his words.

Robert, hearing it himself, looked on in a deep pain. He sighed heavily and tried to find condemnation in his heart for the boy. But from that time, he brooded bitterly to know the highest of quality of courage and ideals was found in his very own grandson and heir. And it was that not since the days before Matthew's death had he found such absolution and comfort to know of the gallantry that would replace Cora and himself when it was time. But it was irony borne with a great pain that this quality of valiant heart shown true at the precise moment when the darkness of compromise, in this, the real world, turned its ugly head. But it was not in Robert to explain or crush the admirable lad in a shining moment of such innocent integrity. How could he tell him that survival and the protection of loved ones meant compromise, even in the face of such evil acts? Would it even be possible to teach a boy so young and brave that the attrition of these small cuts was a parable of life for men such as them? The prospect tore him apart, and he could not speak, only touch Cora, his love, his rock, to steady himself.

It was then, seeing her soul mate faulter, knowing his mind and heart, Cora strode forward with compassion and great deal of love. "Sign the decree, George!" she grabbed the paper. "And I swear to you, that when you're older, you, Donk, and I, we'll talk about what happened here, I promise." There was a softness in her voice that was sincere and comforting.

"Darling, please …" Edith stood up. Gently she paced over and knelt. With maternal warmth of a true love for a young child, she took his hand and kissed it. "You and I, my darling … you and I love Marigold most in the world. You know that I would never do anything to harm her, not ever." Her tears wetted his knuckles. "I'm begging you, luv, please, sign the decree. Marigold will not hold it against you, it will only show how much you care for her. Please, George, please sign it. You won, my darling, you've won already. Mirada will never hurt another little girl again. You did that! You did! And despite everything that has been said, none of us will ever forget what you did for the girls. As Long as we live, I promise you, my darling." For a long beat, the boy was entranced by his glamorous aunt with her golden shimmering curls who kissed his hands and placed her forehead against his. Then, in the warmth and love that radiated from the Marchioness of Hexham, there was just a second that perhaps she was right.

But every time he tried to see it his family's way, the boy remembered the begging cries of Marigold as she was cruelly spanked and dragged down the stone corridor. He could still hear Sybbie screeching for Mrs. Pelham to not hurt Marigold, to leave her alone. He could still see her being carried, half naked, across Brancaster Castle by the Butler. There she could witness what happens to 'naughty little trollops" who tattle instead of enjoying the grown-up jewelry given freely for simply laying back and receiving the pleasures of her 'special kiss'. Then, his blood boiled, and he was overtaken by a rage as black as midnight. He moved away from Edith, backing away till he faced everyone. There, he stood steadfast against them all.

"Never."

Lady Mary gave a sudden cold snarl under her breath. She seemed emotionless and aloof in her dealing with George this day, but they all knew that it was just a façade. Underneath that beautiful and ivory skinned picture of sleek elegance there was a woman that was absolutely petrified. Anyone who knew Mary, as her son did not, also knew what that meant. In the woman's mind, when she was overcome with fear, she spoke of having a burst of sudden unconquerable calm and reason. But, in reality, what most knew of Lady Mary Crawley, those who truly loved her, was that when afraid there came a terrible streak of absolute cruelty that congealed in her heart. She could never bear to be hurt so badly, so she felt the animal instinct to claw and slash first. She would not submit to meekness, and what she mistook for proactive strength was, indeed, horrible turn of phrase from a blackened heart. And never had a woman so misread situations with such eagerness than when facing the mind-numbing horror of her children, any of them, in such danger. Thus, she pushed when she should pull, and put on airs of bravado when she should've been honest about her feelings.

And it was through much misunderstandings of the eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham "knowing thine-self true" that some of the greatest of evils were conceived when Lady Mary Josephine Crawley loved completely and yet feared too much for its loss.

"You speak of honor, and yet, it seems effortless in the many, countless, ways you dishonor the very name of this family with every breath you take!" Something hateful and venomous overtook Mary.

"Says you." The boy argued back, parroting her own words at her.

"Me?" She asked. "You think I'm unaware of my burdens?" She continued coldly. "I'm fully aware of my dishonor, because all of it comes from you! I had a husband, whom I loved, that you killed to come into this world. I had a daughter who meant the world to me that you let die! I had a life, I had suitors, and a dashing and handsome husband who drove racing cars, till you thought otherwise with your low cunning and uncouth behavior!" She snarled in the boy's face.

"Mary …" Tom Branson nearly whispered in shock at what was being said.

"You are an ill-bred, vengeful, violent, plague upon this family and its noble legacy. And it is by some cruel joke of fate that we're forced to watch you strut about our village, with the promise that someday you'll turn our ancestral home for three-hundred years into your personal pirate's lair. So, you can fill it with drunken natives, Black Savages, Heathen Chinamen, and other odious malcontents you find in your stinking dockyard taverns. But no more!"

Suddenly Mary snatched the royal decree out of Lady Grantham's hand. There was a moment of protest from all around the woman when she suddenly and angrily ripped it in half, and then in fours. There was a look of pure madness in the woman's eyes. She took the pieces and threw them in the face of the young boy vindictively.

"I have spent many nights convinced that Isobel, in some madness of self-righteous charity, switched my boy at birth with some farmer's daughter's mistake left at the village church doors. And it warms me, truly, at times to think that our real heir is safely tucked away on some kindhearted tenant's farm. Yet, I couldn't find him nor bring him home till now, because, no matter how hard I've tried, I could not convince Mama and Papa that **_you are not mine_**! But now I know, unequivocally, that God is in fact a Monarchist. And who could deny it? In one blessed swoop, His Majesty has single handedly saved the noble title of my father and his before him from its usurping by the bastard of some braggard boisterous Tinker, too stupid to die on the Somme and some no name teenage Sally putting out for a free drink!"

"Mary! That is quite enough!"

"So, go on, nameless bastard, go fight your 'honorable' last stand with the King's huntsmen where you deem fit, as long as you never darken my door again! You have taken my husband and my baby from me, but I won't let you take my daughter, my only child left! I wish you, with speed, to whatever end you choose as long as it far from me and you don't linger! SO GO!"

Twice, Lady Mary gave the young boy a shove as she ranted. Her eyes were wild with a blind terror and helplessness that was filled with a terrible suffering. Most of what she said in that moment she would not remember, but yet, it would haunt her for eight long years- never giving her a moment's peace. Yet, even as she spoke cruelly, lashing out with words more hurtful than had ever been spoken to her, the boy's very appearance contradicted everything that she claimed. Fore, George Crawley stood his ground with a hard and cold look that made him seem more her child than any that she could've ever conceived by love or hate in any universe.

The library of Downton Abbey grew suddenly silent, shocked frozen by the vile things that came from Lady Mary. The boy in question, looked hardened, yet too much so, as buckled and weathered stone showing pressure fractures. Still he had yet to look away from the woman who, seemingly, showed no emotion. The entire room, all eyes, fell on the boy and what he would do. Their faces expressed in horror at the dark and hateful words of the eldest daughter of the House of Grantham to their Heir. Yet, George remained stoic a moment longer.

"You wish I would've died instead …" He asked in a strange calm of shaken curiosity. Mary absorbed the question with a look as sharp and vicious as a jagged icicle. Yet, she hesitated under the weight of her staring family. But eventually, with a snarling hiss of hate, she spoke.

"Matthew and Caroline were irreplaceable. They were so very unlike you, with your provincial courage and grifter's swagger who any beggar can find in a dozen more orphanages all around the Empire. There was only one Matthew Crawley and Caroline Talbot. You? Dogs have the same courage and integrity, but with double loyalty and thrice the breeding in their tails." She tilted her head.

"Mary! Be quiet, this instant!" Cora snarled in shocked reproach of the wickedness in the very words.

But it seemed the boy and the Lady did not hear nor acknowledge Lady Grantham. They locked eyes for what seemed a perilous and tense eternity. But eventually, George took a step back, then two, before turning to walk away without a word. But as he passed in front of Lady Bagshaw and Lucy, he stopped. The youth turned and made a low sweeping bow toward Lord and Lady Grantham.

"M' Lord, M'Lady … I take my leave to choose the place where I'll make my stand." He said formally, as one who spoke to nobility from the place of a baseborn fatherless orphan, and not to grandparents.

For all her bluster, Mary was slack jawed. She thought, truly, that he would give her a fight, that he would attack her at best for the things she said. Only then, as she watched him go, did she realize how much her words alone impacted one so young. Sure, he had Mama, he had Edith, and he had Tom and Isobel. But they still weren't the boy's mother, no matter how much he grew to hate Mary. And when his mother claimed him illegitimate, named him the bastard off shoot of Highland soldier and teenage girl, fit only to roll with the dogs in the reek of a country hovel … George could not naysay her. Thus, with great folly, from then on, and for many long years afterward, those terrible words spoken by Lady Mary in fear and anxiety for the very boy's life would define how he saw himself.

In his mind, since that day, he was no longer the Heir to the House of Grantham. Indeed, he would be no one, a perpetual stranger wherever he went, a nameless wander on an Arthurian quest for meaning and redemption that would never come. The name George Crawley would gain much fame in many struggles, battles, and adventures to come in the many years he would spend abroad. But that noble name, born from the great love of "The Lady and the Lawyer", would never be associated with the aimless wayfarer who traveled far and was unnoticed by most. George would leave it behind and dwell ever in the shadows of the world, in search of answers to many riddles posed to him in this hour. Then, with a soft click of the library door he walked away without looking back. Both Edith and Tom took a step-in pursuit, deeply hurt on his behalf. But Mary only watched him, stiff, regal, and cold as an ice sculpture of a tyrant queen. And as their gaze followed him, no one, in that moment, would come to realize …

For most, it would be the last they would gaze upon George Crawley for near a decade.

But when he was gone. Mary sank low in her stance, as if a sudden explosion of illness- terminally fatal- over took her. She thought she would die right where she stood. There was a true price for saying those many wicked and hateful things. Though physically unchanged, inside, she lost decades of her life, the stress of a black hearted sickness overtook her. Never, in her entire life, had she so bitterly regretted doing or saying anything as much as she did in that very instant. Mary truly believed that she would die, right there in the library. She turned her head in self-disgust and hatred. Covering her eyes with her hand, Mary let out a sobbed and perilous breath as she, frustratedly, threw a clenched fist to her side. The pale beauty felt the venomous lies she spoke tearing away at her very essence that tethered her to the universe, their evil dissolving her slowly into a yawning abyss.

All she knew was that she loved him, loved him till nothing made sense anymore, and yet all he seemed to do was hurt her. All she knew was that loving him brought her suffering in a way that she had never knew was possible. All she knew was that she hated him, hated every bit of who he was, and the very stardust his foolish and valiant soul was made from. Then, with every bit of herself, she had wanted to hurt him back. Mary wanted to make him suffer just a drop of what it was she felt every second cursed with a cold heart and weathered soul that she gave over to him forever to hold in thrall and ownership.

**THAMACK!**

But Mary, thoroughly shaken to her darkening soul, suddenly felt herself turn right into a stinging pained clap against her pale cheek. She stumbled backward, falling onto the couch. With wild red tinted eyes, the ivory beauty looked up in shock and amazement to see that her sister, Lady Edith Pelham, had strode up and struck her with a hard slap across her face. She was just in time to receive the full viciousness of Edith's curse, her face contorted in outrage and black temper. In truth, Edith might have leapt upon Mary to express her further anger with more violence had Tom Branson not immediately placed his aggressor sister-in-law in a large bear hug from behind and lifted her off the ground the moment she twitched to press her assault. Quickly, Tom backed away, as Edith gave a half-hearted kick at her older sister, her arms restrained at her sides as she was carried behind the sofa in front of Robert's desk.

"Edith, enough!" Robert roared.

Mary cradled her cheek, feeling the full deathly weight of Edith's small golden eyes that were widened in rage. The woman remained off her feet in her brother-in-law's restraint for another long beat, before she was set back down, one of her arms in his grip. Immediately she tried to move away to go after George, to reassure him. But she was pulled back by Tom.

"Let him go … for now." The Irishman advised. "We still have time." He said with a thousand emotions bottled deep, their condensation turning his eyes glassy when they turned toward his best friend with a hopeless look of pure disgust.

Suddenly, the door opened, and they saw Anna Bates stride in. She was timid, awkward, and unsure. Almost immediately, she felt the temperature rise two-hundred degrees and the atmosphere made up of sparking static that hit like lightning bolts. The pretty lady's maid in black silk stood at attention till she saw her mistress laying awkwardly on the couch. There was something in instinct that overcame the woman's maid and she rushed to Mary's side immediately. Cradling the pale aristocrat, she saw the yellow and greenish bruise on her cheek bone, with a gash at its center were Edith's wedding ring had caught her. For a second the blonde maid looked up to notice that no one had come to help or defend Mary.

"I'm sorry Your Ladyship …" Anna stammered, noticing that it had been Lady Grantham who was standing near the pull bell. "Mr. Barrow is unavailable at the moment." She replied in confusion. She wanted to ask what had happened, not liking to find her mistress on her side, with her skirt up, and ugly bruise on her cheek like she had been in a ring with Jack Johnson. But something told her not to ask, or to at least remain professional. So, she gave no emotion, though held Mary to her defensively.

"It's alright, Anna." Cora replied. "It was you who I wished to see." She nodded.

"At your service, Your Ladyship." Anna turned Mary's chin to look at the very fresh bruise before her hand was pushed away by her mistress who looked completely confused and dazed, and yet she seemed mortified at the very idea that she might give herself the impression of being a victim.

"Knowing our long history together, I feel that it would not be out of bounds to inform you that Lady Mary has, once again, dishonored herself." Lady Grantham announced. Anna frowned in confusion turning to her employer who suddenly looked up. It had been a long time since they had acknowledged their joint effort to carry a dead body across Downton Abbey many long years ago.

"I don't understand …" Anna pieced out.

"I will not repeat what Lady Mary has said, but it does not line up with the values that she has been raised with. And it, certainly, does not reflect the values of this household." There was no one in the world who could lob a good lecture in the third person to chastise and embarrass her daughters quite like Lady Grantham. "Therefore, I would like you to pack Lady Mary's suitcases and inquire for train tickets." Cora was cold and congenial expressing not anger nor disappointment. To this, the lady's maid looked to Mary, but her mistress did not protest, only sitting back up straight. Indeed, one might have thought that the woman in question would have suggested it for her own punishment.

"Where to, exactly, Your Ladyship?" Anna frowned.

"I do not know, and I do not care. All I know is that she will not sleep here tonight or any other night till she has redeemed herself in His Lordship and my eyes, am I clear?" She asked with a sudden dark tone in her voice.

"Ye … yes, Your Ladyship?" the maid responded, unsure what had happened.

"Am I, clear?" The Countess reiterated coldly. The blonde woman opened her mouth, but then, stopped, realizing that Lady Grantham wasn't talking to her.

"Oh course, Mama …"

"No …" Cora immediately answered. "You do not have any right to call me that." Cora was rancorous. "No daughter of mine would ever dare to say the things you have today, and certainly not to her own child! You have shamed me and have broken my heart! You may call me your mother, only when this evil spell lifts the fog in your heart, my darling, and you remember that you are my daughter and a mother! And not before!" She lectured in hardened emotions. Tears brimmed her cerulean eyes in devastation.

Lady Mary Crawley was a woman in her thirties, and yet, she looked like a shell-shocked little girl. She was wide-eyed, distant, and almost concussed. It wasn't the blow, nor her exiling, but the things she said that had somehow shorted the wiring in her brain. The very evil in her words seemed to have violated her mind, leaving her traumatized by her own cruelty. She had to be led away by Anna, the woman's maid sometimes wondering if she'd have to pull her mistress's arm over her shoulder and carry her out. When she was gone a new silence overcame the library.

"Cora …" The Dowager spoke up. "I realize that what Mary said was harsh." She began.

"Harsh?!" Edith cut her granny off. "It is unforgiveable!" She fumed at the old woman.

"Now, now, Edith …" She held her hand out to restrain her granddaughter's temper. "They were certainly terrible, I concede. But they certainly are not the worst that a parent has spoken to their child in this room." She shrugged.

"Not being Papa is a low bar, Mama." Robert paced out toward the window. "But Mary did a jolly good impression." He finished with a haunted voice.

"They were always more alike …" She said.

"Yes, he always seemed to think so." There was something reproachful in his voice that was a warning to Lady Violet.

"My point being is, Cora, Mary runs the Estate, you cannot just throw her off it." The old woman explained. "She's co-owner." She argued.

"And I am the Countess of Grantham, Robert and I own the County!" Cora argued back. "And I don't care how much money she has, or what you and her future plans are for our family. I did not raise my daughters to think, act, or speak that way of their children. I have tolerated much of Mary's behavior, because, she's grieving for Caroline. But I will not allow her to speak to any child that way, especially not her own. I will not have the poltergeist of your terrible husband haunt the halls of my house!" She accosted her mother-in-law.

There were plenty of things that Violet might have said in defense of Mary and the old Earl, but she didn't voice them. In matters of the children, since Sybil was a baby, Violet had been stonewalled from any influence in Sybil, Sybbie, George, and Marigold's lives. There was no point in arguing with Cora when it came to the welfare and care of the children under her roof. As for her husband … there was no fight worth dying over, nor explaining the complicated feelings she had for the monster that she watched him become over forty years of marriage.

"Very well …" Violet turned to leave.

"You will not house her." Robert spoke with his back to his retreating mother.

"I beg your pardon?" The Dowager turned.

"You heard me, Mama." Lord Grantham said. "She can stay in the London House. She can stay with Rosamund. She can even buy or rent a house of her own in York or London. But Mary will not stay in the village or on the estate." He finished.

"How … how, how can you say that?" Violet was outraged. "Robert, she's your daughter!" She looked the man up and down.

"Yes, and I hope she'll remember that someday soon." Cora answered. "But till she does, there is no place for her here." She finished sternly.

Violet drew herself to full height. She almost spoke in rancorous protest, but she said nothing instead. Finally, defeated, she strode away slowly, exiting the room with angry and distressed noises in her breath.

"She'll do it anyway." Lady Bagshaw said to no one in particular.

"No …" Robert looked to the woman next to him. "Mary would never accept her accommodation." He explained.

"Why?" Lucy asked.

"She's afraid." Tom answered the woman he loved, now holding a teary and distressed Edith's hand comfortingly.

"Of what?"

"George."

* * *

_ "There's always a place for the angry young man  
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand  
And he's never been able to learn from mistakes  
So he can't understand why his heart always breaks  
And his honor is pure and his courage is well  
And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell  
And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man."_


	8. Act II

_Chapter taken and repurposed from a scrapped Interlude from **"The Wayfaring Stranger"**. _

* * *

Professor James Moriarty was dead.

No one in England could quite make themselves believe it. Ever had he been the great and terrible monster under London's bed, creeping out from its closets at night to torment and terrify. He had been known as "The Napoleon of Crime" and had at one point, or the other, infiltrated many of the highest offices in the British Government. He had been known as simply "M" during his directorship of the special branches in MI6. From within he cultivated relationships at Cambridge and Oxford, going so deep as to the secret clubs of Eton and Harrow to find and recruit devoted followers. Since the ages of Victoria and Edward they had become a shadow conclave, a secret society within the British Aristocracy, in the Foreign and Home Offices.

They were known since as simply "SPECTRE". And of late had it become increasingly clear just who among many long-time friends had been a member of such a secret society dedicated to corruption and ill in the world, if not the Imperium itself. Upon Moriarty's death was it so very well clear just how deep the arch-villain's long black tentacles ran in every branch and office of the Imperium. Mr. Holmes had likened his old foe to a virus, occult in its very devilry. Fore wherever malcontent and malice dwelt, there had been Moriarty controlling it or bottling it to evil ends.

So, it seemed hard to fathom that such a plague - more deadly and pervasive than the "Black Death" itself – had been slain in the American city of New Orleans. But harder still was his devotees and enemy's constitution alike at swallowing of the way he died. Fore, always meticulous in a scheme of villainy, the consummate mathematician to the end, it seemed that he always had the scales balanced. Yet, to hear that his entire lower body had been crushed under a stone column in a St. Louis Graveyard crypt was such an unlikely way to die for such a man as he.

But then, in the last nine years, the criminal mastermind had changed into a rather erratic monster.

He began to wear a mask, of which accompanied queer rituals of rather occultist ceremonies. And at these frightening spectacles of black magic and idol worship did he devote himself entirely to a symbol. A tall tree with bare branches, and within the limbs, at its center, formed a lidless eye of slit pupil that was wreathed in flame. In the bottom of London, in the basement of ancient Cathedrals, he built his altars of stone and defiled their holy ground. He demanded human sacrifices and acolytes to sate his newfound dark religiosity. Yet, he did not pick from the ranks of the poor or the unexpected passerby of the busy street lured into the alley. They were women of noble birth, daughters of Dukes and Earls, Wives of Barons and Marquesses. But he did not kill them. Their naked bodies were washed in blood, lain upon stone, and branded by strange occultist symbols traced in acid. And from these strange and evil ceremonies, these devoted or brainwashed gentlewomen of privilege and title were soon changed. They became sickly, sallow, and at the end … cruel and murderous.

In the year of 1932, when he went away to New Orleans for a time, the evil seeds he planted bloomed in fertility. It started with the horrific stabbing of Lady Ann Struthers at a dinner party by her former sister-in-law. Locked in the room, Scotland Yard arrived in force to find the Grand Lady with a steak knife in hand as she laughed in glee, continuously stabbing the dead woman. Then, came the horrible mass shooting at Downton Place. There, Lady Anna Ackland, who was chumming her new husband at the shoot, had teasingly taken her husband's shotgun from him. His endearing smile was frozen rictus when she so suddenly shot him and his loader. Then, turning, she opened fire at the whole party from their positions. She had wounded Tony Gillingham and Lord Grantham, scathed Lady Hexham and Ms. Lucy Smith, but had achieved in killing both Lady Bagshaw, old Lord Sinderby, and many servants. When her wild and murderous shooting at the party had been restrained by the new Lord Sinderby and Mr. Branson, she could not stop laughing nor speaking in a tongue of a fell black language of pre-history. And, of course, between these incidents were the plague of high-profile killings in many peerage nurseries that were carried out by their own mammas and aunts.

Whatever made them do such things, it was certainly of Moriarty's rituals and design.

It was then, returning in 1933, after a year in New Orleans, marked by defeat - losing both eye and hand in separate duels with the same young swordsman - that Moriarty began wearing the mask all the time. He did not take the devilish thing off, not ever. But after the carnage at Downton Place, he was confronted by his own inner circle. They had all engaged their relationship to him since boyhood for the profit that he promised and delivered for so many years. But occultist satanic rituals? Defiling their daughters and wives, and turning them mad? This was not what they signed up for. And they demanded he halt this crazed scheme at once.

Yet, from that day - driven in malice by his defeat and scars - the professor began a new cycle of madness that frightened powerful and common alike.

What people most remembered of the string of ghoulish and horrific deaths that followed was the chill that passed through them as they read about it. A director in the Home Office poisoned to death - upon inspection of his body, there was found a massive black and hairy scorpion that skittered out of his mouth atop his swollen and still pulsating tongue. A Lord in his manor deformed from hundreds of spider bites that killed him while he slept in his own bedchamber. The deaths went on and on, in repulsive and singularly gruesomely terrifying eccentricities till those in the ranks of SPECTRE did not dared to question the professor nor his methods ever again. But by that time, he did not go by Professor James Moriarty anymore …

He was simply known as "The Necromancer".

A terrifying sorcerer of untold and unknown vodun power. All who looked into his mask's eyes were daunted to madness. He delighted in stripping the soul, till they were naked and afear, dominated utterly by his gaze and will. Such reckless and wonton crime was done at random and no purpose in those years. Waifs and Lords, Hall Boys and Marchionesses – robbing banks and shooting up the poshest restaurants. Village schools were blown up whole in the countryside and trucks driven into busy tea shops. It was a wave of terror that no one in England had ever seen before. And when they took such terrorists alive, they were utterly unmanned, speaking in strange tongues. They were phrases of Gaelic, Latin, Saxon, and even Norse, each different_. "Spirits of the dead, make no mistake my lads, ancient and forsaken, they are!"_ said some of the constables … _"The Necromancer is having a laugh, ain't he? And all Blighty is his playground."_ They said in hush tones.

Of these deeds and foul dark arts was a figure driven by hatred and fear of his defeat in New Orleans, at the shaming of his power. And ever did he swear vengeance upon 'The Dunedain" who should've died in the Dark Lord's Temple in those sunken ruins of the Downfallen with Quartermain and Mina Murray long ago. Dark and cruel were his moods and his rage blackened the dreams of all in England. But even the deaths of many could not sate his lust for the lightless oblivion that consumed him, till the torment of it he could stand no longer.

Thus, it was, that the last that anyone heard from that terrifying blight on humanity had been in the Spring of 1935, when he left his Cultists to return to New Orleans in search of revenge.

And during the height of the 1935 Season in London, the British public were informed that their nightmares were over. Fore, Moriarty's ring was found on the finger of a man whose face was rotted and gruesomely malted - eaten alive over the slow decay of years. And of this there was no doubt in MI6's mind that the body was indeed the legendary villainous Mathematician. But of his mythical and terrifying mask, the New Orleans Police nor the American FBI had not the feintest idea as to where it went, only that whoever had slayed Moriarty had taken the terrifying occult item, as trophy … or for more pressing and cautious reasons. But of who had finally slain the abomination, of who many Lords and powerful families in the British Imperium owed their sigh of relief … that belonged to George "The Comet" Crawley.

At the long disappearance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes many decades ago. And the fall and disbandment of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" upon the deaths of Captain Allan Quartermain and Ms. Mina Murray these nine years past. The one person who had fought James Moriarty, under the guise of the Necromancer, had been George Crawley. And in the bitter hatred between the Black Sorcerer Supreme and the young and valiant adventurer had there been no deadlier or bitter a rivalry. George had been the only one to not only stand up to the occultist villain, but to duel him in single combat and live to grudge the next fight. And at the last, after nine years, and the untold deaths of his friends and family members, the outlaw had finally outmatched his sworn enemy in a final duel at the very gates to the City of the Dead itself.

However, in learning of such things, it had been the opinion of many in High Society that they rather hoped that the two had killed each other. Eight years was now approaching since the day that George Crawley had fled England for America, eight years since the Crown had distinguished him an outlaw and placed a 50,000 Pound reward for his capture … 75,000 for his death. And as the years melted one to the other, there was a grim sort of fascination with when or who would get "the bloody little half-breed". It was even the speculation of some that George Crawley was already dead and had been so for many years. That Lady Edith's stories in "The Sketch" were merely a smokescreen to daunt Ms. Sybil Branson's suitors from overwhelming the Palace and Downton Abbey's doors - crowd control some called it. Even Lady Mary Crawley refused to speak of her son. Thus, was the popular consensus that it didn't really matter if George Crawley was alive or not, because, he would never inherit his estate anyway.

That was till the high summer of 1935, when at a sparsely attended procedural court hearing, the Crown's Prosecutor had confidently argued for the precedent of "The Crown V. Lord of Downton, 1928" pertaining to his case. It was then that the Judge asked that it be stricken from the record, for that ruling had been overturned a year prior. A gavel was hammered to quiet the sudden eruption in the courtroom. Within a week it spread throughout London that the Crown's case against George Crawley, Lord of Downton, had been overturned. It was then that the past year of conformity and Orthodoxy in high societal opinion had been seen as an illusion.

They saw at once that the Wanted Posters of a fair faced young boy with grown out waves of golden curls, suede double breasted coat with Hyborian Hieroglyph on the arm sleeve, and roguish wry countenance - which had become part of post office and town square visits for years - were nowhere to be seen. There was no 50,000-pound reward offered at any police station. There wasn't even a recorded crime involving George Crawley in any of the books. It was as if the last seven years had not happened at all. In fact, one might have wondered where the young Lord of Downton had gone and what had kept him from coming home all these years?

It was then revealed that, by Royal Decree, the Old King Emperor had signed a pardon, a year past, for what had once been his chiefest and most hated enemy. Thus, suddenly, in a maelstrom of shock and outrage throughout Belgravia, it would seem that there was nothing that could stop George Crawley from sailing tomorrow for England and claiming heirship of the House of Grantham and mastery of Downton Abbey. No one could understand it, nor could they find out what had happened –

_'Surely, his highness has lost his mental faculties! It must be that Dutch Harpy of his, she'll hang onto her power even at the expense of a doddering old man … but what can you expect from one who steals from people's homes?' _

But there was no one in the world who was more taken aback by this than Roger Sinclair – third highest grossing actor in Hollywood … Member of SPECTRE and freelance Agent and Saboteur of the Third Reich.

He had thought his and Charles Blake's – another SPECTRE member - scheme was completely fool proof. Anyone might have thought of such things when Professor James Moriarty had drawn it up himself. Why the House of Grantham? Why Lady Mary Crawley? He couldn't say. It was a trap, an ambush, a sought battle with someone, a … "Dunedain" … whatever that was. His planning was time tabled, his schemes were surgical, and his psychological makeups of the Crawleys were pinpoint. For a moment, being in the room, the Professor seemed more his old self than the sorcerer they claimed he became. He worked tirelessly, for years – the defilement of Sybbie Branson, the utter corruption of Mary Crawley, the withering of Lord and Lady Grantham, and at the end …

The complete and ultimate destruction of the House of Grantham.

The overall theory was simply that the Grantham family was too vapid, greedy, and self-important to oppose them. Lord and Lady Grantham were of no consequence in their own domain. The people did not trust them, nor did they heed their word. Since the "Grantham County Massacre" most believed that they had helped in some way, having hosted a lavished banquette in London for the very Prince that had wiped out most of their own men and chased their young Lord of Downton away, all on the same night.

Lady Edith Pelham, Marchioness of Hexham, had fallen out with her family – and of lately had contented herself with her wild stories of George Crawley, or completing her young adult novel series based on her ward Marigold. The fame and adoration of such literary popularity had kept her out of Sinclair's hair.

Of his fiancé, Lady Mary Crawley, she overall was the least to suspect anything, even if it happened right in front of her. Fore she was completely enamored with her own self-image now. Queen of London Fashion Week. A business mogul with a profitable estate, a thriving motor business, and was the mayoress of a town of such comforting and wholesome Austenian whimsey that it had become a rather resort town for the upper and upper-middle classes. Now, when they married, she would be a member of the Hollywood inner-circle, split her time between Belgravia and Sunset, inviting the Hollywood brass-ring to her English Country Estate, or entertain the titled privilege to the sunny hills of Los Angeles. Such a high flying and posh life had made her agreeable to almost anything.

By early 1935 it seemed that everything was going to the Professor's plan.

Though, Sinclair had admitted that there were a few within Downton Abbey that could not be alluded. For one, was that pesky, good looking, Butler chap of theirs. Thomas Barrow, dapper and professional, seemed to have the pulse of the house - eyes and ears everywhere. Of course, he didn't seem to care if Lady Mary's fiancé was going to swindle her – he joined most of the county and tenants in their disdain for their tyrannical despot. But he was starting to suspect something in terms of Sybbie Branson - a curse on the man and his strange attachment to the children of the House of Grantham.

The Movie Star had no doubt that the popularity his soon-to-be stepdaughter had been enjoying in requests for her 'company' had been the topic of conversation in a dozen households. He had been in the spy business long enough to know that instructions meant nothing. If no one was to know about their night with Sybbie, then, by Tuesday, nine-out-of-ten knob nosed bleeders would invite the whole damned staff and their friends to watch as he fucked the most beautiful girl in the Imperium. Then, a lady's maid tells another at the next house party and eventually all roads lead back to Thomas Barrow, whose eyes now never leave Sinclair at any party or dinner when he visits Mary.

The same could be said for Mrs. Lucy Branson. Like Thomas, he was sure the former lady's maid still had friends in service. But more dangerous still was that Mrs. Branson was with child. And though most thought this a distraction, he saw that it was far from it. Fore, now, Lucy was even more watchful, engaged with a rush of maternal instinct that was more potent than ever before. Thus, she also was watching Sybbie closely, talking to her more, and relying on her heavily during her first pregnancy now that Lady Bagshaw had been murdered at Eryholme. But most dangerous of this woman's interference was that he could not control the variables outside of Downton Abbey or Grantham County. He had no idea what was happening at her Brampton estate other than the reports of his sweet Sybbie … which he couldn't trust anymore, not since she returned from Texas and Mexico starry eyed and in love. All it would take was for Lucy Branson to blow the whistle and her husband would enter the game like a bull in a china shop. Fore, Tom Branson seemed the only person in the family who could rally the Grantham's sloth into action and overturn all of the professor's well laid plans.

And he might have, if Sybbie had not been in their thralldom.

Listening in hallways, peaking through keyholes, and part of the very conversation – Sybbie had been his own personal spy on the House of Grantham. Though not always willingly, her fear of exposure to her family of what he had made her do in many Lords and Ladies bedchambers kept her ever loyal. Indeed, he found that Sybbie seemed a natural in the ways of espionage. He often thought that she would be a worthy candidate to nominate for SPECTRE. But for now, he thanked God for his teenage princess and her betrayal of her family.

Indeed, it came to his attention that more of the House of Grantham had become wise to something being amiss. Lord and Lady Grantham tipped off by Tom Branson, who had the whisperings of his wife in his ear, began to sense some plot against the family. They had wisely kept this between the four of them, including Lady Edith when they met secretly at her flat to discuss what was known, and what should be done. Of Mary, they had, wisely, kept her out of it entirely. Yet, it was only by chance, on the train from San Antonio that Sybbie had overheard Captain Crawley and their Aunt Edith discussing the family's suspicions. And chief of their remedy to these phantom conspiracies was George's return to take the Estate and County in hand – and Lady Mary and that Hollywood Beau of hers, if need be.

But of these glad tidings … they had to be tormented out of his beautiful princess.

It had seemed after returning from America, Sybbie was rather combative, even fey, in her refusal to play her part. She claimed that she didn't care if anyone found out what she had done. There was a person, a young man, who would love her no matter what. That he was coming for her, to take her away to Cornwall where they'd live together in bliss. And that nothing – NOTHING – Sinclair did could make her betray him. Thus, disappointed and angered by her defiance, he was forced to do something that, though often threatened, he now acted upon. With a sigh at her pleadings not to, he sold her for a weekend to one of the "undesirable customers".

For any price … that was what the professor had told him. Break her, tear her, send her into any and all bedrooms that would have her, leave nothing for "The Dunedain" to salvage. But, as a freelance agent of Heinrich Himmler's, Sinclair was told to only offer such a beautiful white rose – of whose pin-up pictures sent to him the master of the feared SS enshrined - to 'members of influence' that could be courted for their own cause. Then, there was his own interest. Once George Crawley was dead, the professor promised him Sybbie. And to Charles Blake, he could have whatever was left of Lady Mary Crawley. Thus, often, had Sinclair and Blake bickered and argued about who was being 'too rough' with who's promised prize. So, as a "gentlemen's agreement', they put forward several names within British High Society whose predilections for the perverse they would, under no circumstances, give Sybbie over too … for her own safety. But at her defiance, at the need to know when to spring the professor's trap, Sinclair broke his own agreement.

It had always been the suave and debonair Oscar winner's preference to never get his hands dirty in anything. In fact, he had a rather joy in watching the work done as a spectator. Often, did he relish in the rousing and engaging show of fine art that was Sybbie's defilement by so many peers and Grand Ladies with 'interesting' carnal tastes. But of this occasion, even he could not bear to watch. And when she returned to Grantham House, after a weekend in the 'care' of the Dowager Duchess of Crowborough, she would tell him all he wanted to know. And of the broken and traumatized look in her eyes, even he, the hardened SPECTRE agent, was ashamed of himself.

In the opening week of the London Season of 1935, the Grantham family had all gone to attend the opening of the Royal Met, in which the famed Ms. Marigold Crawley would be dancing the new and exciting show "Orpheus". She would play the beautiful and forlorn Eurydice, wife of Orpheus. The opening week would be played by the London Symphony Orchestra, with an attendance by the King Emperor and the Prince of Wales. It was the largest production that anyone had ever seen be put on by the Royal Met. But it seemed a small price to pay to see the fairy footed and elven fair Marigold dance. And of the reviews that opening night, it was said that it was "transformative to the human spirit". One female writer recalled "weeping openly when he turned around … but who could blame him?" Some said that when the final chords to the orchestra played to the closing of the curtain that Lord Robert Crawley, leaning over, kissed his daughter Edith on each cheek in gratitude for bringing such an angelic creature into their lives.

But it was ill chance that a message for Lord Grantham arrived when the rest of the family would go see Marigold backstage. Lady Grantham told him that he could miss it for their granddaughter. But when he leaned into her ear, the words 'New Orleans' was whispered. Then, clutching his arm, Cora told him that Marigold would understand. And as he left, he was asked by Mr. Branson if he might not take Lucy back home with him, it seemed the emotional toll of the 'greatest thing I've ever seen' had worn the heavily pregnant Lucy to the bone. Lord Grantham was more than accommodating. And Tom, watching the two walk away, talking in excitement, thought how grateful he was that the Crawleys were so accepting of Lucy and his marriage.

But as he and Atticus ordered refreshments for everyone who crowded Marigold's dressing room with praise … they were showered by glass from a large explosion from outside.

* * *

Many months later, in the mid-autumn of that year, an old woman, on a blustery twilight in Cornwall by the sea, was tending to her small garden home on a green hill. Having heard a strange mechanized noise on the evening wind, she looked over her ivy-covered fence to spy some great streamlined clockwork submersible. The intricacy of design to a clock maker's elegant attention to detail was that of an older world that had long passed. But still there remained something intrinsically futuristic, far ahead of any scientific or military machine that the greatest of man's empires were yet to achieve.

The old fish wife stood slack jawed as she watched a rugged young man stand on the clockwork vessel's bow. He braced a forearm in sworn brotherhood with a tall and imperial older man with fierce beard, dark turban, and kingly Rajput sword of gold and jewels sheathed at his side. After stepping on to Hendrawna Beach, the youth turned back and shared a quiet moment with the tall old prince. There was an unmistakable gleam of endearing fondness in the madman's eyes as he lifted a curled index finger up to his lips. Kissing it, he then pressed it to an ancient ancestral jewel of divine right that pinned his turban. Finally, he gave a deep sweeping bow of regal manners and a deep friendship. There was a smugly endearing look on the youth's face as he gave a cocky two finger salute.

Both had communicated a wordless 'till fate determines our doom' in their parting moment.

Quickly, the old grandmother had gone to get her husband inside. But by the time the fisherman with pipe in his mouth and suede coat half on, rushed out, the vessel was gone. It had disappeared under the fathom's below. The old couple watched the horizon for a long time, trying to spy this clockwork monster. But their vain search was overtaken by the clicking of wood and the jangled hiking that approached. Passing their overgrown country gate was a ragged young man with a tall walking staff.

Of his face, they could not see, for he was obscured by evening shadow and a navy-blue scarf wrapped about his nose and mouth to protect him from the cold autumn evening. His eyes were cowled by the drawn over hood of a dark shoulder cloak of strange ancient weavings and material that darken in shade to camouflage the wearer to any environment. This strange cloak was pinned at his collar bone by a tarnished and weather worn four-pointed star of silver. Under cloak was a peacoat of mahogany beaten leather whose supple countenance of material hid the hardier hide of the mythical beast it was made from. Rattling and dangling at his side was the tarnished saber of an Officer that served in the Victorian British Army. Used in battle by both Lord and – recently – his heir, the youth had brought it home with new victories to bring it more distinguishment.

They spotted also a jangling pack of fine leather that was slung on his back. Rolled underneath the back was a duffle of patchwork quilt that protected a silken and priceless Worth Wedding Gown. Rescued from the ruins of Levinson Manor in Rhode Island, it was once worn long ago by the blushing American Heiress that married her rather unlikely soul mate, the Lord of Downton. Girded to the traveler's pack's side was an ornate aqua colored scimitar scabbard that had golden Islamic embroidery designs. The Sheathed sword inside had a handle that was inlaid with gold and brass, with a ruby pummel that had a golden engraving of the royal crest of the Ruling House of the Grand Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. But of this heirloom, this trophy, taken from the vanquished hand of an illegitimate son of the House of Pamuk, was overlooked. Fore pinning closed a rolled and tucked greyish blue blanket under flap was an item of such unrelenting terror that upon sight of it, the very warmth of their blood was stolen away.

Making clacking jangles with every step was a wooden mask born from the Ancient Nubian Tree. Carved from the mythical evil man-eating trunk of the Safari plains, it had been used in many black and abominable rituals in ages of man's pre-history undreamed of. Horns, spikes, and carved scales of purple, green, and red gave it a frightening and unnerving sight and feeling. And though its evil was defeated and tamed by its captor, the old couple couldn't help but feel the empty eye slits trained on them in deathless malice. They felt the burning longing in it to destroy every inch of them, down to their own dead mothers' memories.

The 'Yank' sounding young man gave a grunted evening's acknowledgement with a nod in greeting and parting in the same breath. But they both said not a word watching his passing in shock. Though not Catholic, the couple still crossed themselves for protection in sight of the most powerful and evil artifact to have survived the breaking and remaking of the world long ago.

The youth traveled for some time in the still isolation of the purple and orange evening upon the seaside cliffs of Cornwall. The yellow and fading grass fluttered upon the stony moors as the whipping breeze whispered of snow and winter's approach through the rocks upon the tract. There seemed not a soul to be found upon that dirt path or in sight of miles around the road. Yet, as he continued into the twilight, there came something that was echoed with the roaring of the evening surf upon Nampara Cove that was strange, its faintness growing stronger. It was a tune fair and lovely, the wind through the rock for pipes, the cry of the foam and wave like the flutter of lace trim on silk skirts. And it was then, on that ancient road known to his blood, that something within his soul stirred. There he found a song in his heart and throat that he thought was long forgotten to these places.

Somewhere in time, in an age of longing and memory, the night had sat in disquiet. Terribly sick and at wits end was Lady Mary Crawley. Her back ached, her dinner would not stay down, and across her silken belly, a foot, an arm, was visibly dragged across from inside her womb. It was a rather strange and surreal moment for Matthew Crawley to see his child, another human being, squirming in unrest inside his wife. It was then that Mrs. Isobel Crawley, putting away her husband's stethoscope, claimed that whether it be a boy or girl, Mr. and Mrs. Crawley had a dauntless little fighter to look forward too. But to Lady Mary's disappointment and no small amount of sharpness of temper, Isobel informed her daughter-in-law that there was no medicine she could give her. Her prescription was childbirth, as fast as possible, and a suit of armor for the next eighteen years after that.

Hopelessly frustrated and in no short of pain, Lady Mary felt that she let herself down by being overcome with tears. She couldn't help but feel, though it be irrational and foolish - perhaps even the height of childishness – somehow, their child to be, the child they wanted so desperately … was plagued by nightmares. And her pain, her nausea, was not as worse as the burning helplessness of wanting to hold the baby, to assure them it was alright, that it did not need to be afraid. But while Mary expected her husband to laugh at her, he only got that soft and understanding look in a side grin of commiseration. Yet, in the night, as Lady Mary lay still in the dark, forlorn with fear and pain, she felt Matthew slide down and lift the hem of his wife's silken nightgown up to her chest. Immediately trying to cover herself, Mary demanded to know what he was doing, but she was silenced by a gentle shush as he lifted the hem up again. Then, in fascination, she watched as Matthew laid the side of his head against her pale and swollen belly. Feeling the squirming child's hands and feet against his cheek and temple, he did something she did not expect …

He began to sing softly.

_"When the moon is on the sea  
kosk yn ta, kosk yn ta  
silver pilchards called to thee  
kosk yn, kosk yn ta  
dream of starry gazey pie  
kosk yn, kosk yn ta"_

As he sang, his hand gently stroked the top of her stomach as if it was the head of a babe. In the framing of stray rays of moonlight from the cracks of their bedroom curtains, Mary was transfixed upon her husband's face. Quietly, for a long time, he sang to the baby bump – his voice, though nothing particularly special, seemed bewitching in the late hour of midnight. It was only in the passing of an enchanted pause in the stillness of their room when the song was done, that Mary noticed that the squirming, the kicking, had stopped. In amazement, as it seemed to her, Matthew had almost put the baby to sleep, or healed a piece of its mind with his voice and enchanting song.

When asked where that had come from, Matthew only shrugged, saying that it was a song that his father used to sing to him when he was terrified by nightmares. Of its origins, he could not say, fore it had been one of a hand full of songs that the Crawleys of Nampara had passed down from generation to generation since … all before anyone could remember, really. For the next few months, Mary became intimate with such ancestral songs, as each night Matthew laid his head against her belly, as if to the babe's chest, and healed its fits with his voice.

And when Matthew was gone, taken from Mary and the baby all too soon, the songs had not died with him. Often, in the stillness of the witching hour, when the boy's sleep was often tormented by recurring nightmares of standing on the brink of a great tidal wave, dark and consuming, threatening green hills and shining white cities of ancient wisdom of a sunken Continent. The regal and velvet voice of Lady Mary could be heard echoing softly from the West Wing of the house. Each song tinged with the painful memory of their son's father was sung to steady him. Even in her darkest moments in the aftermath of Matthew's death, when she claimed no attachment to the baby, she still wandered into the nursery in the midnight gloom, taking his little hand with her finger and sang to him.

And it was, in the early infancy of Caroline Talbot's short life, that Henry had overheard Mary singing such beautiful and wonderous melodies to her son. But when he wondered if she might not sing such songs to Caroline, he was rebuffed. Mary, sharper than she should have, rebuked her husband. Of this new family they had the beginnings of, she was content and committed. But Caroline and any of their other children were Talbots and Crawley's of the ruling House of Grantham. Yet, of these sacred Cornish songs and lullabies, they were not for the likes of her and Henry, nor any of their children to come. They belonged to the Crawleys of Nampara, and them alone - which her child was the last.

And in this, Mary, though nobly thought of, did ill. For in one foul move had she detached her only son from her and Henry's new life and family. Also had she planted the seeds of resentment in the existence of secret and sacred chambers in her heart that Henry nor his children would ever be permitted to enter. But most damaging still was the first signs of an exclusivity to a greedy and selfish love for Matthew's only child.

And of which, at its height, would whisk evils darker and more fell than the worse imaginings of two soon-to-be parents singing abed to their unborn child.

Yet, the cowled wayfarer was lost in memories, upon his lips were songs dearer than a childhood blanket of comfort. When the love between mother and son waned to resentment and hatred, when he was exiled far away for many years, there were many an American highway and black Mexican dungeon which the lone voice of a young lore master and adventurer cut through the languishing gloom and isolation.

_ "You're late …" _

The youth's song was interrupted by a deep voice that addressed him from his distracted roving. By the side of a crossroads - marked by ancient sign showing the way to the town of Truro and the opposite way to London - there stood a man. He was tall, with shoulder length locks of waving black hair under a tri-corn hat. His slender build was covered by a long moleskin coat, collar turned up in the back. He stood at the promontory looking out at the fading sunset sinking below the foaming and glittering waterline. Ghostly in appearance, his raiment out of time and place – and his countenance forlorn, gazing, searching, for someone on the horizon. And for some reason, unknown to the young wayfarer … he knew it was him that he had been searching for. Mounted on a smooth rock, the man had his hands behind his back as a parent who waits up for a tarty child who missed his curfew. Though the youth could not see his face, there was something in his voice that struck a chord in him that went right down to the heart. The type that one knows instinctively as paternal, ingrained to hold in reverence, respect, and, indeed, love.

"I had things that needed attending." The youth replied as one who was his own age to a paternal figure in a defiance of respectful candor.

The man was quiet for a long moment, seeming to wrestle with what he wanted to say and what he should say. He turned his head slightly, revealing a stubbled handsome face, marred by a single facial scar on his cheekbone under left eye. He glanced at the young traveler before him. For a moment it seemed that he might have said something sentimental, approving, even doting. But he only sighed as he returned his gaze to the fading horizon.

_"There's a man's job to be done."_ His voice hardened, yet he could not hide the concern nor worry for the young man behind him upon the seaside tract of stone and dirt. The youth nodded at the silhouette in agreement.

"Then a man shall see it done." He replied, his breath behind his scarfed bandana frothed.

To this, the confidence, the assurance in the valiance of youth, caused the handsome older man to finally turn. After a century and some decades of retinue there was very little alike in face to the man and the youth. But of the man's spirit, it had lost none of its potency in those of his siring. Even Matthew Crawley, anxiously pastoral and upright, had the bite of roguish and rebellious temperament from the mysterious man. And of his only child, it was unmistakable that he had ever been more of Nampara than he would be of Downton Abbey. And to this, the handsome figure in tricorn and moleskin coat grinned at the youth. He leapt from the rock perch, leaving no tread nor track as he walked up to the dashing and daring Ranger.

_"See to it that he does, Captain."_ The proud paternal figure said with a familiar wry roguish grin, placing a hand fondly on the youth's shoulder.

"Yes, sir …" The wanderer gave a soft nod, closing his eyes at the touch. Fore, it had been many long years since a male member of his own blood, a father or grandfather, had shown comfort and encouragement to the youth. Indeed, of male role models he had his pick of legends … but seldom could they replace the absolution found in close familial love.

But the momentary contentment was broken by the distant sound of a bell ringing. His eyes opened and both looked out to find the old and overgrown ruins of an ancient mine. Its tall stone silo was wrapped in long snaking vines, its crooks and crevasse caked with mossy seaweed. At its base, among collapsed stone, near the dilapidated entrance, was a greened and corroded bell that once had announced the beginning and ending of a day's work below grass. The youth's cowled eyes stared long at the ancient bell captured by the sea breeze, momentarily amazed that it could still ring some century since the mine's closing.

But when he turned back, he found the man was gone.

For a startled pause he stopped and searched the stony moors about the cliff's face. There in the distance, he saw the handsome man trekking contently toward another figure who waited on him. She was pale of skin, with a dress of emerald green that made her crystalline eyes shimmer in the dying light of the day, like they were made of glass. But most identifying of all of her attributes was her long mane of bright red hair that fluttered in the breeze. The young man stared long at the beautiful maiden who held her hand out toward the man. It seemed that she had been summoned to fetch him now that one of their own, who had been lost for so long, had now found his way home again.

A contentment and sorrow mingled in the youth's chest to see how they came together. Their hands intertwined in a deathless love, and the bright and joyous smile on the maiden's beautiful countenance moved the young wanderer's heart. He watched them as they kissed, their silhouette cast in the shadows of twilight. But when they embraced, the maiden stared out at the youth from over her husband's shoulder. There, on her lovely pale face, in sight of the young man, was a look of absolution and relief as a worried mother who returns to find her own child safely at the hearth. Yet, her ruby lips were lilted in the ghost of sorrow, as one who knew what doom awaited that whom she loves.

Easing from their embrace, the man noticed his wife enraptured with the youth and turned back to him. But the daring young wanderer was entrapped, lost in her eyes. For it was in this moment, and no other known to him, that he would be able to gleam into the closest thing to his own father's crystalline gaze, of which Matthew Crawley – and many of his forefathers - inherited from the maiden herself. They stood in the last purpling of the sky, and together, admired the young man as parents catching a glance of a child grown who leaves their doorstep for the last time. With glassy eyes, the youth stood and gave them a bow of his head in reverence and love. But when he looked up, he saw that they were already walking away.

Arm around one another's waist, they trudged over heather and rocks of the stony moors and disappeared into the shadows.

The crash of the tide upon the rocks and the cold breeze from the west broke the quiet stillness. For a long time, the wayfarer looked out at the darkness. There his gaze turned to the ruins of the stone silo. The corroded bell was silenced, even as it winched back and forth in the frigid evening. He walked through the weeds that grew tall and unmolested among a field of fallen stone and rotting shacks. In the fading light, he stabbed his staff into the sod and crouched down. There he picked something out of the overgrowth. Clumps of dirt and moss clung to an ancient sign that the youth cleaned off with his fingerless gauntlets.

**WHEAL GRACE**

He moved forward, high stepping through the weeds till he reached the rotted and green stained oak post where the bell hung. He tilted his head and, with interest, traced the words that a small boy once carved with his knife from the ancient chalk outlines. _"Resurgam"_ It said. "I shall rise again" had been it's meaning. When he was a boy on his monthly holiday with his Grams to Nampara, it had meant nothing to him in all the times he had come to this place. It had been words that someone had written, a distant uncle in the days of youth. But now, eight years later, eight years wiser, eight years hardier, and eight years more burdened by sorrowing languish. The words had meant more to him upon his return to this, his ancestral inheritance, a derelict mine, that long ago, a handsome man in tricorn hat and his beautiful wife with fiery red hair had reopened together and started a family from its reward and punishments … his family.

Hanging up the sign upon the post, he drew his staff from the sod. In his other hand he gripped the ancient rope and with three hard tugs was the cold Cornish night rented with dull rings from the old Wheal Grace mine. It was the old signal of the beginning of a new workday. It was a signal that though the mine was long gone, and the famed name of its family along with it. There was still one of that race that had not yet passed into legend and phantasm.

When the darkness of night pooled in the shade of the stone silo, the moon sickle above the passing of ragged silvery clouds, the youth sighed. Then, with the jangle of his pack, the rattle of a grandfather's army saber, and the stabbing of his walking staff into the moors, the young wayfarer hiked back to the road. Yet, before he mounted the tract, the roar of the rolling tide was joined by a clear voice that was carried by the wind. A duet between youth and a red headed maiden of whose songs had yet to be forgotten by her descendants.

_"Memories like voices that call in the wind,  
Medhel an gwyns,  
Medhel an gwyns.  
Whispered and tossed on the tide coming in,  
Medhel, oh, medhel an gwyns.  
Voices like songs that are heard in the dawn,  
Medhel an gwyns, medhel an gwyns.  
Singing the secrets of children unborn,  
Medhel, oh, medhel an gwyns.  
Dreams like the memories once born on the wind,  
Medhel an gwyns, medhel an gwyns._

_Lovers and children and copper and tin,  
Medhel, oh, medhel an gwyns."_

* * *

**START OF ACT II **


End file.
